


Getting the Super-Secret Boyband Back Together

by arsenicarcher (Arsenic)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: CACW spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Past Brainwashing, Post-CACW, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:27:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6770776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody splits up Natasha's family.  Not even the people in that family.  Yeah, she's having none of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let's Jailbreak This Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luuv2shop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luuv2shop/gifts).



> If you skipped the tags, lemme just repeat: here be spoilers for Civil War.
> 
> Okay, so, some stuff.
> 
> 1\. If you read this and feel the need to defend Tony, you lack reading comprehension. Please don't comment; I genuinely don't care and will delete your impassioned defenses of someone I'm not attacking.
> 
> 2\. As the tags suggest, this fic essentially ignores AoU. Wanda's in it, so I suppose it's not completely ignored, but for the most part, yeah, I kind of just pretend like it never happened. That said, I do 100% ignore the fact that Vision exists, because he squicks me out in a bunch of ways, and so, yeah, I get to not put him in my fanfic. Sorry if he's your boo.
> 
> 3\. Tags on this will probably grow with the fic. I will definitely, definitely warn if something significant changes at the beginning of a chapter. That said, this is me, so chances are, at some point we're going to find out about terrible things having happened to at least one character *cough*Bucky*cough* and possibly others. 
> 
> 4\. Using my "on the run" square on the world's oldest h/c bingo square, at which, yes, I am still chipping away. As such, story is dedicated to luuv2shop.
> 
> 5\. Thanks to copperbadge for the quick-and-dirty looksee at this first chapter, and for helping me out with some practical stuff and some tone stuff.
> 
> Enjoy!!

The text reads, "Remember that time at Fort Meade? We should do that again."

There are two people in the world right then who know how to reach Natasha, and one of them is in an underwater prison. Natasha types back, "Yeah, good times."

Steve texts back a set of coordinates, and from there it's a matter of three hours to reach him, another twenty-four for Bucky, Steve, and her to put together a jailbreak plan. There's a few hours of waiting, after that, since they need for certain satellites to be in exact position, and that's definitely the worst part.

They're all jumpy, ready to go, and Steve's shit at self-containment in a lot of ways. Bucky watches him pace for a while before forcing him into some card game Natasha's never even heard of. Natasha, for her part, reads newspapers, gathers intelligence, tries to put some kind of plan in place for after their little group of fugitives is safe and tucked away in Wakanda.

Her mind skips around. She's tired. Maybe it's soft, but she's gotten used to having the others at her back, and having to go dark again has been exhausting. She's trying to skim an article on uninhabited islands when she hears Steve say, "Hey," and realizes he's talking to her.

She glances up, dredging up a quirk of her lips for him. He returns it with that look he's got, the one she hates and loves in equal measure, the one that tells her he's got her number. On almost anyone else, she wouldn't allow it. "Hey."

"Wanna get some sleep?"

"We've got watch," Bucky says, and there's something in the tone, in the way he meets her eyes that makes her think he remembers, he does. She almost presses—he's clearly in pain, tired, and still scared, whether of himself or something else, scared—but in the end the truth just isn't that important, not yet. Not now.

She says, "Thanks. I'll give it a shot."

She doesn't sleep, not really, but she closes her eyes and breathes, and never once worries that someone will be able to get to her while she's not looking.

*

Natasha hugs Clint when she gets to his cell. There's no time, not really, but he doesn't scold, just clutches her for a moment and says, "Still friends, Nat."

Then they move, on to where Wanda is, Natasha's hands steady as she undoes the collar, but only because there is no other option. Freed from the jacket, Wanda stumbles into Clint's side, and Clint catches her, says, "You're good, we're all good."

*

Wakanda is seventeen hours by quinjet from the prison. Scott curls up in a seat and immediately sacks out. Clint flies, channeling the nervous energy Natasha can see in the lines of his body into getting them where they need to go.

Bucky finds the darkest, smallest corner of the jet and does his best to disappear. Steve, unsurprisingly, budges up against him, providing a buffer between him and everyone else. Sam settles himself in a seat near to them, posture casual, but Natasha isn't fooled. Anyone who wants to bother the wonder twins is going to have to go through him.

Wanda perches on the edge of one of the chairs, her posture too tense for shaking, but Natasha can practically smell the way the small space is eating at her. It's somewhere to start, something to concentrate on that's not the fact that, except for Rhodey, Tony's on his own back at the compound. Natasha misses the days when anger was a friend, easy to hold onto and fortifying. She misses the time when she could have held a grudge. Mostly, she misses when she hadn't known how to read Tony, all his myriad fears and insecurities.

She hauls Wanda up and puts her in the co-pilot seat. Wanda opens her mouth to ask, "What?" but Natasha shakes her head once and buckles her in. She says, "Keep Clint company."

Clint raises an eyebrow at Natasha, so she raises one right back. Then she goes and challenges Sam to a no-holds barred game of gin rummy.

*

Bucky's in his right mind. He knows that the Wakandans are helping him, trying to patch the worst of the circuit damage, stem any of the nerve connections that keep coming into contact with the shorted cables, causing a type of sparking, stabbing pain he hasn't experienced in the arm—well, he doesn't think ever.

It's hard, almost impossible, to sit still, to let these strangers touch him, gather on his left side when he has no ability to defend himself. Steve stands across from him, though, solid, immoveable, his eyes on everything. Sam is also there, unusually quiet, off to the side, but more than close enough to come to Bucky's aid, should he need to.

Natasha is also there. Her presence is at once soothing and like an itch he cannot scratch. He _knows_ her. He has almost killed her twice, once with his arm, once with a gun. He has killed through her once. None of these memories are the ones that pull at the edge of his mind. There is something missing, something important.

Every victim lives in him. Howard perhaps more vividly, his mumbled, desperate _Sergeant Barnes_ , his pleas for his wife. But all of them. She is not his victim, at least not in death. Something tells him it might be something worse, something he doesn't want to know.

He has to know.

Eventually, the scientists decide they've done what they can. The pain is still intense in its own way, but pain is…familiar, if not comfortable. Besides, Bucky knows what has to be done. He might fear the ice, its dark, dreamless depths, but nowhere near the way he fears the traps in his own mind.

If nothing else, there is no pain in the ice. It is safe, or the nearest thing he knows. He's desperate for a little safety.

*

Natasha and Sam stay on the fringes of the room while Bucky is put under, both of them watching as Steve's shoulders tighten. Sam rubs at his own face and Natasha considers him for a long moment before she says, "I'm going to stay with Steve. Go get some rest."

"Nat—"

"Seriously, put some ice on your face, take a few painkillers and get nine or so solid hours of sleep. Then you can get back to being his support system, but let someone else handle it for a bit."

Sam looks over at Steve again, then sighs, clearly giving in. He tugs Natasha into a one-armed hug and says, "Yeah okay. You do your thing."

She squeezes back and then lets go, watches him until he's out of the room. Then she takes a deep breath and goes to pull Steve away from the cryo-chamber. He startles when she comes into his space and she puts her hands up. "Just me."

"Sorry, I—" He seems to deflate. "Sorry."

"C'mon," she says, folding one hand in his. He resists for a moment, his gaze still on the chamber. Then he visibly gathers himself and allows himself to be led from the room. She asks, "When was the last time you ate?"

"Uh," he says, and his brow wrinkles.

She rolls her eyes. "Okay."

She detours to the rooms they've put Clint in, because the first thing Clint had done after arriving was make food for himself and Wanda, who didn't look like she'd been eating while locked up. When Natasha knocks and Clint lets her in, Wanda's nowhere to be seen. Clint says, "Nat. Hey, Cap."

"Clint," Steve says.

"You have leftover food?" Natasha asks.

Clint stands back, muttering, "Do I have leftover food, she asks."

Clint's method of cooking involves simple ingredients and large portions. Natasha's pretty sure he picked up most of it in group homes and the circus. It's never gourmet, but it's always filling, and yeah, there's always leftovers.

There's an island in the kitchen area, and Natasha half-pushes, half-guides Steve onto one of the stools at it. She digs into the refrigerator, where there's a few Tupperware of what looks to be meat lasagna. She pulls it out as Steve asks Clint, "Where's Wanda?"

"Checking out the terrain. She needed to be outside for a bit. Or, you know, maybe a couple of days."

"How's she doing?" Steve asks quietly. 

Clint catches Natasha's eye and they share a mental wince at how rough he sounds. Clint says, "She's fine, Cap. At least, she will be. Give her a day or so. But this isn't on you. And making it about you takes agency that she's fought pretty hard to have from her, so, you know, don't."

There's a few moments of tense silence, nothing but the hum of the microwave, and then Steve gives a small, only slightly broken laugh and says, helplessly, "She's a kid."

"In a way," Clint agrees. "But also not. None of us, not you, not Nat, and not me, _none_ of us were still kids at her age. We might _want_ to spare her what we went through. And we can, a little, by being here. But there are a lot of ways in which she's not a child. Hasn't been one for a long time. And it does her no good for us not to respect that."

The microwave dings, and Natasha puts the Tupperware between Steve and herself, handing him a fork. He digs in with the sort of focused gusto he has with food, and things are silent for a bit. When Steve is slowing down, Clint says, "You look tired. You both do."

Steve says, "It's been a long…" He shakes his head. "Yeah, I could use some sleep."

"Why don't you guys stay here," Clint says. "I was just going to do some stretching, hang around."

Natasha hears the _wait for Wanda to come back_ he doesn't say. She also hears the way the offer's not really casual. He wants them where he can see them. Steve starts to shake his head, so she intercepts and says, "Sounds good."

Steve looks between them. Something must give Clint away, because Steve nods and says, "Yeah, all right, thanks."

When Natasha follows him, and tucks herself around him in the bed, he asks, "Nat?"

"Suck it up, buttercup," she mumbles, sleepy and calmed by his heartbeat. "None of us is letting you be alone until you make us."

His hand spreads over much of the breadth of her back. "Oh. Well. That's okay, then."

*


	2. Believing For So Long

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another thanks to copperbadge for making me pace everything better.

Natasha wakes before Steve and slips away, tucking him in so that he has an approximation of being cuddled. She's not going far.

She finds Clint drinking a huge cup of coffee that smells like heaven and watching a documentary. He mutes it and asks, "Did you know that panthers aren't really a specific thing? Different cats in the large cat family with black coloring are all called panthers."

He takes a huge gulp. "I wonder if there're places here you can go to watch them. In the wild. That'd be awesome."

Clint likes animals. One of Natasha's earliest memories of him is watching him scoop up a frog and place it gently back in a stream it had been washed from while they waited for an extract. He'd said, "Hey little guy," and smiled in a small, sweet way, and Natasha had thought, _Don't you dare get attached, you stupid girl._

He looks up at her now and asks, "How you doing?"

She has slept. And everyone is safe. She should be fine. He gets up, setting his mug on the table and says, "Hey," pulling her into his arms. She goes, stuffing a palm into her mouth, biting until she tastes copper.

He makes a soft sound and pulls back to nudge her toward the sink, where he runs her palm under hot water and washes it out with dish soap. He says, "Tasha."

She takes several deep breaths. "SHIELD…losing SHIELD hurt. It was like I'd learned what 'home' meant and then had it razed to the ground. But that's all it was, a home. Homes can be rebuilt, restructured. Family—" she swallows. " _Fuck_."

"Okay," he says. He cups his hand at the base of her skull, his fingers massaging at a point above the hairline. "I know I'm not exactly an authority when it comes to family. But I've watched a lot of TV, so I know that they fight, and do terrible things to one another, and that doesn't mean things are over."

She grabs the ridge of the sink, the pain in her palm a focus. "You'd shoot Tony if he came through the door right now."

"Maybe in the knee," Clint agrees. Then, "Not—I don't want him dead, Nat. I want an apology, sure. Not even for being on opposite sides. For him assuming that his moral ground is the only moral ground. But, I mean, that's Tony. 

"And even—even if I did want him dead, I wouldn't do that to you."

She turns her head to look at him. He smiles, a half-smile, uncertain and a little pained. "Always pulling my punches with you, I guess."

She telegraphs her next move, bringing her hand to his jaw, moving in closer to him. He has plenty of time to move, to shake his head, to say, "No."

Instead he says, "Don't do this if it's because you're scared."

She keeps her eyes on him. "I am scared," she admits. "I'm scared about what's going to happen to Bucky, and how it will affect Steve. I'm scared about Tony basically being on his own and the fact that he's a reckless moron when left to his own devices. I'm scared that I don't know where the hell I fit in a world where using my abilities to help means being seen as a danger anyway. I'm scared about a million things, but none of that's why I want to do this."

"Then why?" he asks, gray eyes deceptively flat, calm. Between them lies the silent, long-recognized and long-ignored truth that he has been hers for the asking for years. Not since the beginning, no. Not even for the first few years, when trading her body for information or other needs was still instinct, when the kill-shot was the first one she took, when she was still more damage and programming than human being. But for a long time, now, too long for her to be sure of when she first knew, or when he first knew that she knew.

She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them back up. "Because I forced myself not to after New York. Forced myself to detach, to think 'logically' and decide it was just that I had been so terrified of losing you. And I forced myself again after SHIELD fell, telling myself I was just at ends, and I couldn't do that to you. 

"But I'm out of willpower, Clint." She takes a shaky breath, and watches the way he smiles, just a bit. He's not laughing at her. He's indulging in hope. The fact that he can is possibly the foremost thing she loves about him. 

She makes herself talk before she loses the nerve, uses her body to say what her mouth should. He deserves to hear the words. "I'm out of excuses for why I shouldn't let myself be in love with a guy who's terrible at rebuilding cars but keeps trying anyway, a guy who sees everything but keeps all the important stuff to himself, a guy who's been knocked in the teeth more times than anyone can count, but just keeps smiling."

His eyes widen, infinitesimally, like maybe he realized she paid attention, but not that she cared. Or—or, well, Natasha doesn't know, but he's surprised and she hates that. She hates how long she's waited to make him feel like they were in this together. She swallows and tells him, "I know a million things about you, and even the ones I hate, I love. We're literally on the fucking run from the governments of one hundred and fifteen countries, one hundred and sixteen, if you count the one we're hiding _in_ , and I'm done running from myself, from you, from us. I'm done."

Clint is still for several seconds before slowly nodding. "Is it wrong of me to be really mad at Cap for cock-blocking me at this moment?"

Natasha dodges the question. She doesn't want anyone being mad at anyone else on the team just now. There's more than enough of that going around. "We could make out on the couch like high school kids and then pretend to be learning about panthers when he comes out."

"Neither of us ever went to high school."

"Yeah. It'll be a first for me." He won't be the first man she's chosen to kiss, or even to have feelings for. But he will be first in this, and she suspects a number of other things.

He covers her hand, still cupping his face, and takes it in his. Then he pulls them back to the couch, letting her fall on him, both of them giggling when their lips touch.

*

Tony spends the first few days after Steve's letter and the subsequent news of the jailbreak mildly drunk. Rhodey clearly disapproves, but just as clearly does not have the spoons to handle Tony's dysfunction so long as he doesn’t have to hold Tony's hair back. Tony figures that's pretty fair.

He puts his focus into dealing with the lab at the compound. He's never really dealt with it before, since it was there as a just-in-case. The tower was where he did everything of significance. But now that he's staying here he needs it to feel safe and contained, and have everything he can anticipate using in reach.

DUM-E and You putter around, the soft whir of their electronics grounding him. Tony knows himself well enough to know that he needs other people. He also knows himself well enough to know that he can never admit that to the ones that matter. 

The phone stays in his pocket. It's bulky, heavy in a way he's sure is in his mind. He can't seem to leave it in a room. Every time he tries, he's back there in minutes, seconds away from a panic attack, sure that it's gone, that his last link to Steve has vanished. 

Tony tries to hold onto his anger. It used to be so easy, like a second skin, like the suit, really, his creation, ever evolving. Tony thinks he might be too old for that, or something, though, because it keeps slipping away. Mostly, his mind returns time and again to the way Bruce could never shake his guilt over the damage Hulk had caused in those first, violent forays. Tony thinks over and over about Natasha's face when confronted with the deeds in her past. He has the sense memory of sitting up nights with Clint, watching over a still healing New York, the other man silent and pale and heartbroken.

Worst are the times when Wanda would hide herself from him, unable to discern the man she'd come to know from the weapons manufacturer who'd killed her parents, destroyed her home. She's told him the story, shaking from anger and grief, her fingers digging into her skin to give herself control. She's told him, and he's never apologized, because there are no words to bring back what has been taken from her. Even if it was Obie who sold those weapons, they still bore Tony's name, his imprint, his need to prove himself to his already-dead father.

Wanda has told him the story, but she has also forgiven him. She has shared meals and smiles with him. She—she is, in the way of children, perhaps, infinitely wiser and more flexible than Tony is finding himself.

Tony wants Steve back. Tony wants his mom back. Tony wants a lot of things. But, despite all outward appearances, Tony's an adult. He knows desires take compromises. And he knows full well he will often take what he can get when it comes to the people he loves.

His mom is beyond Tony's reach. Steve—Steve is not.


	3. If You Eat That Sort of Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick scene, since things are crazy at least through Saturday. Not read by anyone but me.

T'Challa has sent all of them a message asking them to join him for breakfast two days after the team's arrival. The last time Natasha was in the same space as the king, she'd incapacitated him with four widow's bites, so despite his offer of hospitality, the idea of a shared meal has her on edge.

Clint pulls her into the shower and takes his time shampooing and conditioning her hair, soaping every inch of her. When she murmurs, "My turn," loose and half asleep again from his attentions, he kisses her softly and says, "Tomorrow, we're running late."

She summons up a glare and mutters, "You did that on purpose."

Clint doesn't deny it. Instead, he turns off the water and wraps her up in a fluffy towel, kissing her forehead. She'd make fun of him for being the world's biggest sap if it weren't so comforting to her at the moment. With any luck, they'll both feel more like themselves in a few days and their mutual mockery can take its rightful place in the relationship. For now, his quiet worship, unleashed after years of holding it back, fills up the dark corners of her where all the "what ifs" and "what nows" reside.

They walk down to breakfast together, their knuckles brushing at times. Sam meets them in the hallways at one point, does a head to toe glance and says, "Interesting timing, but congrats all the same."

Clint says, "Thanks, man," and that's that.

When they reach the area where breakfast is being held, a large, open courtyard with abundant greenery and lots of padded seating, Steve gives the three of them a nod from where he's sitting. Natasha is relieved to see his plate filled to the brim. It's not that Sam, Clint and she can't take care of Steve if need be, but the fact that he's doing it for himself frees each of them up to concentrate on other problems.

Scott's at the buffet table. He's flirting—and completely striking out—with a tall Wakandan woman bearing sharp, striking facial features and close-cropped hair. Wanda is sitting cross-legged in an arm chair near T'Challa, listening intently to something he's saying. She's nibbling at some fruit. Natasha can almost hear Clint thinking that Wanda needs to eat more.

Natasha follows Clint to the buffet table, where he piles enough on his plate for two. Natasha grabs some coffee, toast, and jam. She'll come back for more when she's heard why she's here. Sam grabs a little of everything and goes to sit down next to Steve.

Clint settles on the side of Wanda that T'Challa's not occupying. Natasha sets her plate on a side table, but stays standing. She's restless.

The Wakandan woman has settled herself next to T'Challa, who kisses her cheek and murmurs, "Morning."

T'Challa looks over at Clint and says, "I would like it if we could start over again."

Clint puts his whole plate in Wanda's lap and stands, holding his hand out. "Honor to meet you, your highness, I'm Clint. Deeply appreciate the hospitality and protection."

T'Challa's expression is somewhat bemused. Natasha suspects he's thinking that nobody's that easy going about getting his ass kicked, but it takes a lot to move Clint to anger, let alone get him to hold onto it. He knows too much about what true evil looks and feels like to be bothered by a disagreement with someone, even when that disagreement ends in violence. 

Nonetheless, T'Challa shakes Clint's hand and says, "T'Challa, please. The title is cumbersome."

There's grief in the tone of the request. Natasha thinks, not for the first time, that T'Challa does not hear someone talking to him when the title is used, does not want to hear someone speaking to him. Clint nods at the request and both men sit back down. 

Into the quiet of the morning, T'Challa says, "Now that you are all here, I would like to introduce my sister, Princess Shuri. She has agreed to take on the role of Black Panther for now, so as to allow me to focus on making my succession as smooth as possible."

There are nods and murmured greetings. Shuri says, "Just Shuri, please. Princess has never sat well."

Natasha doesn't smile, but only because she's got more control than that. She has no doubt that Shuri has been climbing trees to get away from keepers and advisors since she was old enough to walk. Idly, she wonders if the other woman would be willing to spar. The Wakandan style of combat, if T'Challa is anything to go by, is intriguing to Natasha.

"This means," T'Challa continues, "that she can travel to other areas of the world, take care of my country's interests abroad. Of course, that may, at times, require staff or other miscellaneous entourage."

"Huh," Clint says at the silence that follows this pronouncement. Wanda makes a noise that might be a quickly bitten-off laugh. Clint ignores it, and instead turns to Sam. "Seeing as how you can actually pass as Wakandan with a little bit of camouflage and some hints from Nat, how're you with running interference with Stark?"

Natasha puts a hand on Clint's shoulder. Definitely still angry, then, she can hear it in the tightness of Tony's name, Clint's very use of "Stark" rather than "Tony." Sam shrugs. "While I'm a decent peace broker, and while I appreciate that he went to Cap's side with the _intention_ of helping in Siberia, all things being equal, I'm not sure I'm the guy for this job."

"You don't have to be," Natasha says. All eyes, with the exception of Clint's, turn to her. Natasha shrugs. "We can use that ruse to get Sam in and out of Wakanda when there's a recon mission on behalf of Bucky, or something along those lines. There's too much information your scientists don't know, and are going to need."

T'Challa and Shuri both tilt their heads in an identical show of acknowledgment. Steve says, "That still leaves Tony with a flip-phone, Rhodey, and too much time to think."

"Which is why Wanda and I are going to stowaway on one of these diplomatic excursions, courtesy of Wanda's ability to make us unnoticeable," Natasha says.

Clint leans his head back to look up at her. Then he goes back to popping almonds in his mouth. Steve opens his mouth, but Wanda beats him to it. "Am I just along because you need my powers?"

"No," Clint says, but then shuts up, leaving Natasha to explain. He has that tone, where he knows she's got the right plan, but that doesn't make him like it.

"No," Natasha agrees. "You're along because Tony's not mad at you, and you're not mad at him. I can bring him around, but I need…emotional ammunition."

Wanda considers this. "Are _you_ mad at him?"

Natasha takes a sip of coffee to give herself a moment, then admits, "A little. But not for disagreeing with us, or even for being too stubborn to consider options once he had started down the path he chose."

It's Steve who asks, "Then what?"

Clint glances up at her again, his face open, easily readable. She returns the favor and he sighs. He's the one to say, "Because he allowed his guilt and his _fear_ to be more important than us. She's-- _we're_ \--not mad. We're—"

"Hurt," Sam finishes.

Natasha makes a gesture of "there you go."

"Anger always feels better," T'Challa says.

Shuri eyes her brother. "But is rarely useful or productive."

Steve looks down at his now-empty plate and then up again. "And me? Are you…hurt by my choices?"

Natasha allows herself to use Clint's chair as an anchor, but she won't let herself hold too tightly. "With you, it's—yes. Yes, I'm—" She finds a spot in the distance to stare at for a moment, taking that time to try and order her thoughts. "You chose your morals over keeping us together. And as much as I'd like to want to kick you in the face for that, to not do that would make you someone else. Not-Steve."

He nods. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Natasha waves a hand. It's worth everything and nothing at all. She appreciates that he's sincere, but that doesn't change anything, and wouldn't were this all to happen again.

Steve's wince is minuscule. Natasha notices all the same. He draws himself into a rigid posture, team leader once again. "All right. Presuming you're in agreement, T'Challa, Shuri, it will be Sam who plays intermediary to the outside world for mission-based needs, Wanda and Natasha who do the…ally re-building."

T'Challa shares a look with Shuri before saying, "Agreed. In the meantime, I thought we might discuss ways to ensure that none of you go stir-crazy during your stay here."

"Oh, thank you, Jesus," Scott says. Clint, who has just taken a sip, snorts orange juice out his nose.


	4. Get This Thing Started

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's got some digging to do. Tony's got someone he needs to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to copperbadge for the read-over and making things better.

Natasha has a lot to think about.

The first time she slept—really slept, not just dozed or rested fitfully—after the fall of SHIELD, was four days after. By that time she was certain Clint was holed up somewhere safe, and Steve had woken and was on his way to being healed up. She went back to the cave base and slept for nearly eighteen hours, dreamless and deep.

The next night, she had nightmares. Natasha's pretty familiar with nightmares, but these were unusual. They were a little too…solid, like something known only forgotten.

When they began recurring every few nights, she did what any sensible, highly-programmed and subsequently deprogrammed assassin would do: talked with Sharon about whether the CIA had any memory recovery specialists who could be trusted. Sharon came through with a name, and it took a few months, but Natasha got what she came for: memories of being trained by Soldat. 

Back then, it was the only name she knew for him. Soldat.

Of course, her memories were simply lightly scrubbed, most likely through hypnosis or other "gentle" forms of brainwashing. What worked for her in terms of regaining memory, and particularly in terms of having been deprogrammed, won't work for Bucky. For one thing, they had to erase a lot more of him. For another, they drilled the programming—and damage—much deeper. 

But the recovery of her own memories had been enough to figure out where to go to get the information that might help Steve, the file that only someone with knowledge of Soldat could find. And it had been enough that she chose not to look at the file when she got hold of it. Now that she has her own memories, she has one, startling in its clarity, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of hearing his screams during a wipe.

She knows enough. Or, at least, that's what she has told herself until now.

Now she's standing in front of a cryo-chamber, and the only person who showed her any respect or kindness in the entirety of her childhood is frozen, trapped by the fear of what he can be, what has been made of him. 

Steve has compiled a considerable amount of information in the two years he's been searching for Bucky. She starts from the beginning, from what he has managed to find of how they held him at first. It takes hours to get through. Not that there is much of it, there is not. But she keeps having to get up, take a walk, work her way through some katas, anything to help her calm down.

The first few years, so far as she can tell, were all experiment. Try and fail and try again. This means that to hold him they kept him starved and sleep deprived and beaten. The arm was worked on time and again, seemingly rarely with any sort of anesthetic used

That was all between their early attempts at using the machines and drugs. There are good records of that, the experiments. They documented everything, how long he screamed, at what point he begged, when he forgot his own name. The last was seemingly from pain and mental torment. He didn't _actually_ forget his name until almost five years in, when they managed to hit on the right dosages and pulses.

It's then, so far as she can tell, that they started the actual programming.

*

Tony wants Bruce. Natasha's right: once Tony finds Bruce, if Tony even can, it's going to take some serious reassurance to get Bruce to come to the compound. There are plenty of places in the compound where Bruce can hide from the government. Tony, after all, had built the place with the team in mind.

It's getting Bruce to believe he can stay hidden that's going to be the hard sell.

While he's trying to find Bruce, or, well, Friday is, he hops his jet to London. Thor might be hard to pin down, but Jane is not. He goes to her labs and asks to see her. When she comes down to the lobby, still in a white coat and looking perplexed, he gives a little wave. She walks over. 

Since they've never met in person, Tony sticks his hand out and says, "Tony Stark."

She tilts her head, still looking uncertain, but she shakes his hand. "Jane Foster, but you came to see me, so obviously you knew that."

Tony feels the corner of his mouth curling. "For the record, I was reading your publications years before you shacked up with Greased Lightning."

Jane blinks at that. Tony smiles. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee."

Jane considers him for a moment and then shrugs. "Sure. There's a place a couple of blocks over."

Tony throws a couple of questions about the Bifrost out while she's leading him there, partly because he thinks it'll relax her and partly because he's curious. She's the foremost authority on the planet, and while he doesn't really _need_ to know how it works, that's never stopped Tony from pursuing knowledge. He's not wrong about her relaxing. She comes alive talking about her work, her face lighting up and her hands lending emphasis to her words.

He buys them both black drip coffee, dark roast, and hands hers to her. She takes it in both hands and Tony is caught by the thought of how small she is. It's amazing Thor hasn't accidentally crushed her.

She takes a few sips, winds down her response to his last question and says, "But you didn't come to talk astrophysics with me."

Maybe not, but he'd been enjoying the easy camaraderie of "because science," for a moment, there. He swallows a sigh. "I figured you might know where Hammer Time is."

She raises an eyebrow. "So you can force him to make the choice of submitting to governments he doesn't know and largely doesn't trust—for good reason—or boot him off the planet?"

He judges her with his eyebrows in return. "He made his choice clear when he stayed out of sight. And—there wasn't—" Tony tightens his jaw and looks away. Force had never been supposed to enter into this. The whole point had been to _lessen _unnecessary violence. "It was supposed to be a first step. A way of showing the world that we take these powers and the responsibilities they bring seriously."__

__"I can follow the logic," she says. "But _Sudan_ was one of the hundred and sixteen countries that signed. And half the time, nobody can agree if Sudan has a government or not. Iran signed it, and their governmental structures are somewhat questionable at this time as well. I'm not saying that I would necessarily feel better about the situation if all the signees were well-established governments with the input of their citizens, but it would at least lay one of my concerns to rest."_ _

__"Would that it were a perfect world, Dr. Foster."_ _

__She smiles into her cup. "But that's the thing, isn't it? The point of people like you, like him? You're supposed to make it better. And while accountability is certainly to be strived for, there's a difference between that and responsible oversight."_ _

__"Is there?" he asks._ _

__She looks up. "The former might actually be possible."_ _

__Tony opens his mouth, and then closes it. It's a good point, actually. In the end, all he says is, "I don't want to find him just to trap him."_ _

__"Then why do you want to find him?"_ _

___Because I can't pick up the fucking phone and call Steve when I don't, technically, by the dictionary definition of things,_ need _him._ "Because I need an ambassador."_ _

__Jane stares at him for probably a full minute and then succinctly calls him on his bullshit. "You need a friend."_ _

__Tony silently pleads the fifth, not taking his eyes off her. Jane makes a face. "Ugh, fine. Go home. I'll—just, go home."_ _

__Tony chooses to believe that means she'll relay the message._ _


	5. Reach Out and Touch Someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha has an idea. Thor takes Tony up on his invite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to copperbadge for the read-through.
> 
> Obvs, since I'm mostly ignoring AoU, things are a little fudged as to what they know about Wanda and her abilities.

Sex with Clint is strange. It's not bad strange, not at all, but there's a creature comfort level to it that Natasha has never experienced before. The desire is there, has been there for some time. Laughter has been easy between them for as long Natasha has allowed it to be, years and years now. And Clint—Clint has never had a damn thing handed to him in his life, certainly not female companionship. He's focused in bed, intent on her in a way he isn't even with his targets. 

He doesn't put her on her back, not once, because he knows she doesn’t like people hovering over her, being atop her. He pays attention to every one of her signals. He cradles her to him afterward, like he's afraid it isn't real, afraid he'll wake up to find her gone. He cradles her, but he doesn't trap her.

The ease of it, the drawn out, slow nature, the number of times he brings her off, makes her drowsy, pliant. He murmurs, "Love you, Tash," and she mumbles, "Mine."

He laughs, but it's not at her. She can always tell, with him. It might be at himself. She'll worry about it later, when she's not half asleep.

She drops off and dreams. She dreams of small hands skimming over where flesh and metal meet. She dreams of the feel of stubble on her forehead, warm and just a little scratchy. She dreams of praise, spoken too quietly to parse, but understood all the same. She dreams of red energy and crumbling earth. She dreams of the sky, white and cold.

She wakes with a gasp, and Clint is there. He's not in her space, he knows better than that. But he does say, "You're safe. We're in Wakanda."

He says it in Russian. After several breaths, she answers in English. "What time is it in DC?"

"Uh." Clint grabs his phone from the side of the bed. "About 8:30 at night."

"I have to make a call." She leans over to kiss him lightly. "Everything's fine, I just—I had a thought. Sleep, I'll be back."

She goes into the main area of her suite and settles in an armchair, wrapping a throw around herself. Wakanda's winter is coming on, and while it will be mild compared to most of the places Natasha has lived, the fireplace and provided blankets are appreciated. She dials the number and holds the phone to her ear.

Nick picks up on the second ring and says, "I'm dead for a year and three-fourths of my pet project ends up refugees fuck-only knows where."

"Serves you right for getting shot," Natasha tells him. It's possible she hasn't completely forgiven him for the whole dying-in-front-of-her thing.

He laughs a little. "Tell me how to help."

"I need the files on what we know about what was done to Wanda. I know it involved the scepter, but I need more."

Nick is quiet for a moment. "What kind of more? What are you looking for?"

Natasha picks at the blanket. "She can evoke emotions, which means she can access fears or desires, other things that people don't even necessarily know they're carrying. But fears and desires grow out of experiences. They grow out of memories."

"For the most part," he agrees.

"So, to some extent, she's accessing memory. But what if—what if she can call out specific memories, and what if she can alter the tenor of memories?"

"To what end? Just because we don't want to remember something, doesn't mean we shouldn't."

"No, nothing like that. Trigger words are just triggers. They're programmed triggers, but they're triggers all the same. That's why SHIELD had to tear open my years in the Red Room to get at the few they'd implanted. Mine were essentially surface implants, though. Basic triggers bred into the mind of a child who had already learned what disobedience meant. 

"All the same, it's…the principle should remain constant. If the memories attached to the triggers can be dug up and sorted out, there's at least a chance they can be overcome."

Slowly, Nick asks, "And you think Maximoff can do that?"

"I think figuring out the science behind Wanda as best I can and the two of us considering a plan of action is better than me sitting on my ass waiting to go crazy over here."

She can hear him sigh, but all he does is ask, "Assuming I can get you the info, where am I sending it?"

"You're not. Get it to Maria, and tell her to be on the lookout for Sam."

"All right."

She smiles wryly at the annoyance in his voice. He's never liked having secrets kept from him. "And while you're at it, see if maybe Pepper can send Maria to Tony on some kind of business pretense. You know, for a few days."

"Pretty sure that'll be the first time Hill's ever been used as a peace offering."

That's not exactly what Maria is in this instance, but Natasha can't explain that she's looking out for her dysfunctional family without getting into the fact that the Accords have become somewhat beside the point for the time being. And although she knows the full story, it's not hers to tell. So all she does is say, "Yeah, well, first time for everything."

"Mm," Nick says. "Is it night where you are?"

"Close enough," she hedges.

"Go back to sleep."

"You're not my boss. You gave that job up when you died and subsequently helped dismantle the organization we both worked for."

"Well, do it anyways. For old time's sake." He pauses. "Or because I'm your friend, and I think it's what's best for you."

She rolls her eyes. "Night, Nick."

She sits in the chair, listening to the night sounds of Wakanda, entirely different from Moscow and New York and DC. Then she gets to her feet and goes back to Clint, falling asleep again to the cadence of his even breathing.

*

It rains three days before Thor shows up. Tony can't decide if that's a coincidence or if Thor has been hanging out, deciding whether to actually show himself. It doesn't matter, because Thor comes and parks himself in front of the gaming system, which is where Tony finds him, losing epically at first-person shooter games.

Tony sits down on one of the chairs, and waits for Thor to die. Again. When he has, Thor sets the controller aside and says, "Friend Stark."

Tony raises an eyebrow. Thor is straightforward, it's both an asset and a problem, depending on the situation. Normally, Tony values it, even as it unsettles him. Now, it's terrifying. He finds himself asking, "Have you eaten?"

Thor smiles at him. It's not as unguarded as Tony has gotten used to, and that hurts, but Thor doesn't seem angry, just uncertain. Tony says, "We should order Chinese."

Thor loves Chinese. Tony once witnessed him walk into a hole in the wall in Chinatown and talk his way into ever more adventurous dishes, until the kitchen staff was actively trying to gross out the weird white dude who'd stumbled into their path. They never managed. Tony is pretty sure Thor will try anything once, including things that would probably kill anyone mortal.

"I would enjoy a duck," Thor states. Tony knows he means the whole duck. And probably egg rolls and a couple of containers of fried rice. 

Tony says, "Friday," and she responds with, "On it, sir." 

Quietly, at least for him, Thor asks, "How is Colonel Rhodes?"

Tony feels a headache coming on. He'd spent more of the last week working on the exoskeleton supports for Rhodey's legs, and it feels as though every slightly movement forward involves about three steps back. Pun in no way intended. "He's—he's getting there."

Confusion flashes in Thor's eyes, the way it sometimes does when he's missed a colloquialism, but after a moment he nods. "I was glad to hear he was alive and his mind was whole."

For a second Tony wants to lash out. Because _fuck_ Thor's relief. Thor could have been there, could have caught—

Tony takes a breath. "Why are you here?"

"My lady Jane said you had asked for me."

"And a month ago? If I had called? If Natasha had? Would you have come then?"

Thor tilts his head. "You did not, as you say, call."

"Thor—"

"Neither you nor the esteemed Captain did. It is certain that both of you knew you could find me through Jane, and yet you did not. This suggests that perhaps both of you desired a neutral party at a time when the dust had settled."

Tony takes his point. All the same, "That doesn't answer my question."

Thor nods in acknowledgment. "No. It does not. Nor can I in any manner you might find satisfactory. On Asgard, oversight is a given factor. We are a monarchy, and even as a member of the royal family, I had to answer to my father. The idea of answering to _someone_ is appealing and calming. But I stepped down from the throne not merely because I wished to be here, with my lady and my warrior brethren, but because I saw the folly that sometimes imbued my father's command, and was not foolish enough to believe that mine would not contain the same.

"Asgardians, humans, we are creatures of emotion. And emotion coupled with power easily gives way to corruption, even in the best of us. It is not, then, that I do not see the merit in these Accords to which you wish to bend, but rather that I also see the failings in them. Failings I find hard to simply accept."

Tony rubs a hand over his face and says, "Yeah, well." He's tired. Everything feels sore lately, down to his fucking capillaries. 

"Failings that, given time, I believe you would find hard to accept, as well."

Tony summons a glare. Thor responds with a look of placid calm. Tony breaks first, getting up to pace.

Into the silence, Friday states, "ETA fifteen minutes, boss."

Thor's mouth quirks into a partial smile. "Let us break our fast and then determine where it is we must go from here."

"And what if there is nowhere to go?" Tony asks.

"At the risk of inflating your already considerable sense of self, you are too smart to truly believe that."

Tony hates it when other people are right.


	6. Political Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hill comes to the compound. Sam has lots of game. Lots of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to copperbadge for the read through.

Hill arrives at the compound two days later. Tony finds her fixing herself a drink in the main room. He tilts his head and asks, "Pepper send you?"

She stirs her drink. "Nice to see you as well."

"Hill—"

She cuts him off. "She was the one who gave me my marching orders."

Tony waits a beat. "But?"

"But if I were a betting woman, my money would be on Natasha."

Tony moves across the room, partly to make a drink and partly to give himself time to think. It's hard when Pepper's involved. Missing her is an ever-present ache, reminiscent of the way he was always peripherally aware of the shrapnel when it was still in him. He can't tell if he's disappointed that she wasn't behind sending someone to check up on him—because that's at least part of why Hill is here, nobody's fooling anybody—or relieved that Natasha is pulling strings to get to him from wherever the hell she is.

He shoves all this aside. "Why do you think it was Natasha?"

"I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you," she says, casually dragging her stir stick around the rim of her glass.

Tony finds himself laughing. It's not a belly laugh or anything, but it's more than a snicker. "Even if I tell you a secret?"

She rolls her eyes. "Please, Stark. The only good secret you've got right now is that Thor's hiding out here, and I clearly already know that."

Tony's gaze snaps to her. "How."

"Relax," she says, sounding semi-contrite. "I talked to Jane. I was put on monitoring her for a while back in the day. When she found out she punched me in the face, but she's a terrible puncher, so I patched her hand up and bought her a drink and she forgave me. When I saw that you'd gone to London I had a hunch, so I gave her a call. That's it."

Tony rubs at the back of his neck. Everything feels tight, bruised, almost like he's sick. He knows better. He gets this way when he goes too long without touch. Even with Thor and Rhodey around, it's been long enough since Pepper that his skin has stopped fitting right. He's thought about going out and finding a quick fix for it, but every time he has the thought his stomach turns. He's a little afraid of what would happen if he actually went out and did it. 

Softly, Hill says, "Natasha wasn't wrong to send me, though, was she?"

Tony asks, "When was the last time you remember Natasha being wrong?"

He tries to hide how bitter the words taste. He suspects he doesn't completely manage. Hill watches him for a long moment. "I find Natasha's ratio of wrong and right to be fairly average."

Tony narrows his eyes. "Where are you in all this, huh? You can't tell me you're not schilling for SHIELD in your off hours, and maybe some of your on hours, so what's your approach?"

Hill takes a sip. "Fucked if I know."

Tony blinks. She smiles, sardonic and amused. "When you guys were under SHIELD, I would have said that was the best thing. Then I found out SHIELD was a carrier for a fucking pandemic waiting to happen. And I—" She shakes her head. "I was military before I was SHIELD. I _believe_ in chains of command and established order and oversight. But I don't know who to trust anymore. And that makes it hard for me to see a real answer to the problem." 

She shrugs, her shoulders tight. "You're right, in that the answer isn't allowing things to go on as they have been. But I don't know that Steve's wrong in being suspicious of this particular approach to fixing the problem. So, as I said, fucked if I know."

Tony looks down at the drink in his hand. He'd almost forgotten it was there. "Just once, would it kill the universe to make things a little bit easy?"

"Not sure," she admits. "But I would be concerned that this is a 'be careful what you wish for' moment."

"Probably," he acknowledges. "How long are you here for?"

She shrugs. "It's not like I can't work from here. If Pepper needs me, she'll call. In the meantime, I'm in no rush."

Tony should probably say something about overstaying her welcome, or not having one in the first place. Instead, he asks, "Wanna spar?"

"Let me see: do I want to kick your ass around a room for a bit? I have to think. Oh wait, no I don't. Yes, let’s do that."

"Big words," Tony says. He leaves it at that, though. He's well aware she'll back them up.

*

They leave for New York—officially, Shuri is meeting with a number of UN delegates—a couple of weeks after settling into Wakanda. Sam's not feeling great about the whole thing. Bucky's still under ice, Steve's a non-stop ball of nervous energy, and Wanda's too-quiet, too-still whenever she's around others. It feels like a bad time to up and go, but Natasha needs information from Hill, and there are certain things, that without Tony's encryption security, have to just be handed over.

Lord knows, the sooner they get Bucky off ice, the sooner Steve's going to calm the fuck down. And while Sam might not be as sanguine in the belief that Bucky's programming can be undone, if anyone can manage, it's the team of people on Wakanda just now. 

It's just Sam, Shuri, and her bodyguards, one of whom flies the jet. Sam's trained with Shuri a few times in the past couple of weeks, but otherwise they haven't had much contact. She's busy helping T'Challa manage his transition, and Sam's been looking after Steve, brainstorming with Natasha and Clint, prodding Wanda to make sure she's responsive, and occasionally making sure Scott hasn't burnt anything down.

The thing is, Sam has game. Or, evidently, he _had_ game before he started hanging out with Captain America. Steve Rogers, though, is clearly a game-killer, a vampire of skill with the ladies (or gents, or whatever) because at the moment, Sam's got a gorgeous, powerful, intelligent woman sitting feet from him, with hours to go in the flight, and he's blanking on anything to say. He could just read or grab some sleep or watch a movie, or something. But that seems like a gigantic waste of opportunity.

For the record, Sam does not think he stands a chance, long term. She might be a modern-day princess, but she's a princess, and Sam presumes there are strictures around that, needs that have to be met within a marriage. But flirting with someone isn't marrying them. And it'd be nice, really, to have that sort of give and take for a bit, especially with someone who genuinely makes his heart beat just a bit faster.

What ends up coming out of his mouth is, "You better at the politics than your brother?"

To his surprise, it works. She smiles with a small huff that might be a laugh. "Worse, if you can imagine."

"Well, I've met Steve, so, yeah." And Tony, for that matter.

The smile deepens ever so slightly. "What is the American saying: how did a nice gentleman like you end up in a dump like this?"

"You don't like this jet?" Sam asks. "It's a very nice jet."

"I was thinking of underwater prisons, in truth."

"Touché." Sam laughs a little. "In that case, Captain America."

"Loyalty, then." She tilts her head, an inquisitive look on her face.

Sam rubs the back of his neck. "I suppose you could call it that."

She raises an eyebrow. "What would you choose to call it?"

"Hero worship?" Sam offers.

There's a beat, and then she shakes her head. "No. No, I don't believe so. You know the faults of this man you choose to follow. You simply find his strengths to outweigh them."

"Is that not a type of hero worship?"

She's quiet for a moment, clearly thinking. "When we were children, I saw my brother as a hero. Bold and strong, a heart of gold, spine of steel, et cetera. And then, one day, he was cruel to me. I don't even remember how. Something one child would do to another. Perhaps he was haughty while around his friends, not wanting his baby sister around. 

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that my world was shattered. I sobbed and hurt and felt lost. Sometime later, I ran away from home, upset that T'Challa would inherit the throne merely because he had been born first. I was eleven, perhaps twelve, and while I knew the forests surrounding the palace well, they're dangerous, even for a fully grown adult. 

"He found me. T'Challa. There was a search party, but he knew me, knew how I thought, and he was the one to find me, hiding in a tree, cold and scared of the dark, alone. He pulled me down and took me home and stayed with me when I couldn't sleep that night. I was a child, so it wasn't as if I realized this at the time, but it was that moment when I decided that despite T'Challa being terribly, horribly human, despite the fact that I now knew he could be mean and even petty, he was still worth giving my allegiance to. He's not my hero, but he has always been my prince, and now he is my king. If it is worship, it's not of the hero kind."

Sam nods. "With Cap I suspect there's a lot of the 'hero' left, and maybe less of the 'worship.'"

"Semantics," she says, calling him out.

"Semantics," he agrees.

"What, then, does it take to win your loyalty, Sam Wilson?"

Sam is pretty sure that's a line, but as lines go, it's a damn good one. "Hm, let's see, reckless disregard for your own safety and a face that actually created the word 'earnest'?"

"I've been told I have the first. One out of two isn't so very bad."

Sam swallows. "I could probably be persuaded to compromise. My, uh, y'know, standards."

She laughs. "Could you now?"

He grins. "Chances are good."


	7. And Now, A Little Backstory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha fills Clint in on why the Bucky situation is important to her. Sam returns with info.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry this took so long. Things have been a little intense in Arsenic-land. Will try to get the next one up sooner.
> 
> Thanks again to copperbadge for the read through.

Natasha has Clint down on the ground in a chokehold long enough for him to tap out, which causes her to scramble back. Clint sits up and coughs a little. "Not that I mind being the guy you come to in order to express your frustrations, but wanna tell me what's going on?"

Natasha winces. He'd offered to spar in good faith, and sure, he can take a lot of punishment, but she can already see bruises forming near his trachea, and he's favoring his right side. "Fuck," she says.

He waits her out. That's maybe the worst part about it—the best part—is that if she doesn't want to talk, he won't make her. He'd probably even get back up and let her have another go at him. She folds her knees up in front of her and hugs them to herself. "I called Nick for the files on Wanda. That's where Sam is going. Maria has them."

There are a million reasons she loves Clint, maybe more. But none of them is as powerful as the fact that he never suspects the worst of her, not even when given reason to. He shifts a little and says, "Okay. Tell me what you're thinking."

She's not sure where to start. Or, maybe she is and just doesn't want to talk about it. He's asking though, he's asking and listening and he deserves an answer. She swallows, her throat aching already. "The first time I met…" She frowns. "Well. Bucky. But not, he wasn't then. They called him Soldat. That was all."

"Tasha," Clint says softly. She looks up at him. He makes a face but says, "The Red Room?"

She nods. "He was there, I just—I didn't know it was him. Not even—" She pauses and considers. "I think I suspected, in Odessa. But I told myself I was being foolish, that there were probably a number of agents who could have done what he did."

"Were there?" Clint asks.

She scoffs. "Do you know _anyone_ who can do the kinds of things he does? Maybe if we melded you and Steve and me together, maybe."

Clint runs a hand over his face. "Let's table that for the moment and go back to the part where you knew Barnes at the height of his mind-controlled years."

"He was—" She's been thinking of how to explain it for the better part of a month now, and still, nothing really makes sense of it. The closest thing she's come up with is, "He was a mistake, although I'm not sure they ever knew it."

She smiles, even though it hurts a little, a bruise that has never quite faded. "He taught some of us. The 'star' pupils. Fighting techniques, stealth, poisons, marksmanship. Death and destruction, never the languages or the infiltration pieces. He was their weapon in everything."

Clint lets the silent lie for a moment before prompting, "Why was he a mistake, then?"

To her surprise, Natasha knows the answer. "Because he was never theirs. Not completely. Enough that they could force the big picture things—if they'd ordered him to kill me, he would have. But they couldn't control the things they didn't think to force on him."

"What are you saying?"

Natasha tucks a hair behind her ear. "There were punishments for failure. All kinds, and failure was inevitable much of the time. Nothing that could permanently harm us, of course, we were too valuable for that, but food could be denied for thirty-six hours, electric-shocks delivered to a certain level, beatings that left us bleeding and bruised but on our feet." She looks away, because she can say this last one, but she doesn't want to see his face. "Rape, sometimes. Especially if the failure was in relation to charming a mark, or 'playing our part' on a mission."

She hears Clint get to his feet, watches out of the corner of her eye as he paces, shaking his muscles out. He doesn't interrupt, though. She digs her nails into her thighs and says, "If we trained with him, Soldat, during or after one of the punishments, he'd find small ways to make it better. A smuggled protein pack or banana. A bag of ice. Analgesics and a bottle of water. Just little things, but so much more than anyone else did for us."

"Fuck," Clint says. She glances over at him, but he shakes his head, gestures for her to go on.

"Until I met you, he was the only person who'd ever treated me like _I_ was a person. He was sent on several of my training missions, as trainer and babysitter, I suppose. And there was this, the third time. It was my first American mission. I was terrified I would get the accent wrong, or miss a word, or—anything. It was a big mission, and failing would have meant a serious punishment, the kind that would take time to recover from."

Clint makes a subvocal sound that's probably unintentional. She smiles at him. It's shaky, but real. And she's honest when she tells him, "That only happened once. I swear. They put me in a metal box. Too small and too hot during the day and too cold at night. Three days. I survived."

They'd had to put her on IV liquids for another two days afterward, heal up some second-degree burns where she hadn't been able to get her skin off the metal for long enough at a time, and she'd been mildly hypothermic. The retraining to handle small spaces again had been no picnic. But it really had only been the once.

Clint tells her, "You survive everything. That's the least reassuring reassurance on the planet."

She shrugs. It's over, there's no going back and changing things. "Not the point. The point is that I didn't fail. I seduced a sixteen year old kid and used him to get to his family and kill his father, which was the mission."

Every time she thinks she's healed just a little from these memories, forgiven herself the tiniest bit, life finds a way to prove her wrong. Breathing hurts and she wants to cry, would if only she could convince herself she deserves it. "I—when I got to the safehouse I had blood in my hair. I wasn't as good as I would be, yet. Still made little mistakes here and there. I had blood in my hair and he put me in the shower and came and turned off the water when it got cold. He made me drink water and he—"

She takes a deep breath through her nose. Clint says, "It's all right, you don't have to—"

"He hugged me. Didn't say anything, not 'it's all right,' or any other lies, nothing to suggest what I was feeling was wrong, he just held me." She can barely inhale. "The first and only person to do that until you."

"Okay," Clint says. It's not exactly a response. It's him having made up his mind about something.

She cocks her head. "Okay?"

Clint nods. "Okay, we're going and taking a bath and a nap together, and when we wake up, we're going to talk to Wanda about what you're looking into and she's going to help and the three of us are going to figure out how to fix Bucky."

Natasha could do this by herself. But hearing him say he's there, that he's going to walk with her wherever she goes? It loosens knots in her spine that have been there for years. She takes a deep breath, almost too-aware of the sudden ease of it. "Bubbles. I want bubbles. There's eucalyptus and arnica bubble bath under the sink in your room. I think it's T'Challa's apology for beating you up and putting you in prison."

Clint snorts. "Remind me to thank him."

"After bubble baths and a nap. And coffee."

"After that," Clint agrees, and holds out a hand. She can get to her feet on her own. She takes his hand.

*

Sam returns a week later with the information, a relayed hello from Maria, and a mild look of hero worship in his eyes whenever Shuri is in the room. Natasha would needle him, except for the fact that she thinks it's a good idea. If there's one thing Sam needs, it's someone who's not entirely caught up in all this crazy.

Instead she asks, "Everything went smoothly?"

"I don't think Stark knows, if that's what you're asking."

It's not, exactly, but it's good to know. The less Tony knows right now, the better for—well, at least for Tony, who doesn't immediately have to make any decisions. Natasha suspects he's looking for them. He's not good at sitting on his hands, and Steve already poked that bear with his letter. It's probably not very long before Tony no longer has plausible deniability, and Natasha thinks they all need a little more time.

Or maybe it's just that she needs it. So long as Tony doesn't know where they are, he can't make another decision that ends with any of them in prison. She's enjoying holding on to the belief that he doesn't intend to. He hasn't used the phone, which maybe isn't a good sign, but it isn't a bad one, either.

She makes herself ask, "Did Maria say anything about him?"

"Not much," Sam says, watching her. She knows he hasn't figured out how to read her, not when she doesn't want him to. Sam tells her, "He's hiding Thor at the compound."

"That's—that's good news." For one thing, Tony's not alone. Maria won't stay, she'll go back to Pepper, that's her _job_ , but Thor will be there if Tony needs, if Tony has _asked_ , which he clearly has. For another, it's pretty indicative of which way the wind is blowing with Tony. Hiding Thor is definitely not following the Accords. Natasha read them: there are whole sections on "non-naturalized earth dwellers," which seems like pretty slippery language to her, when it's pretty obvious who everyone is talking about.

"Hill thinks he's still trying to find Banner."

Natasha doesn't doubt it for a second. She also doesn't doubt that nobody's going to find Bruce until Bruce wants to be found. The thought concerns her, but she's got too many things on her plate to worry about Bruce who, whatever else, can take care of himself. Has to, really, or the Other Guy will for him.

Sam eyes the folder he just gave her. "You want Barnes up and running before Stark is back in the picture, huh?"

Natasha wants so many things. "I want Barnes up and running."

Sam nods. Natasha leans in and kisses him on the cheek. "Thanks. For—"

"Yeah, yeah," Sam says, butting his forehead up against hers and wandering off. 

Natasha clenches the folder in her hands. "Yeah."


	8. The Sovereign Nation of Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha and Tony are both busy making plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to copperbadge for the read through.
> 
> I haven't seen the last five eps of AoS. I doubt it matters, but if somehow it does, that's why.

Natasha reads the files curled up in front of the fireplace, Clint reading silently beside her. They make notations where they think something might be important. They prod each other into getting up and sparring when they get through some of the worst of it, sections about Wanda being pulled apart and sewn back together in a new formation, about her being tested to the limits of her endurance.

There are notes about Pietro as well. They set those aside.

The information isn't extensive. It's what was recovered from the base where Wanda and Pietro were worked on, but clearly much of it was destroyed, most likely in an attempt to keep the Avengers or anyone allied with them from getting their hands on it. Still, it's enough to start with.

Natasha doesn't let herself think too much about how she's going to ask Wanda for this. She just makes herself go and find Wanda, figures she'll manage something, she always does when it's important. 

Wanda is watching Steve spar with T'Challa. The match is interesting. Steve has gained a lot of finesse over the years, no doubt, but he still depends more on strength and intent than technique. T'Challa is three-fourths technique and a third speed. He lets the suit be his strength, so a certain extent. Natasha could watch all day, but when she sits next to Wanda, Wanda asks, "Did you find something? In the files?"

"Mostly confirmation that my theory is solid. You should be able to isolate memories, either to allow reliving of them, or alteration thereof."

Wanda twists her mouth. "I don't suppose it gave any clues as to how?"

Natasha shrugs. "Not really, but—how did you figure out most of the stuff you can do? The training has all been working with abilities you already knew you had to strengthen them, or make them an element of team work. We haven't worked on developing new elements within them. That was all before you became part of us."

Wanda's hugs her knees to her chest. "Most of the time it would be—Pietro and I would just…throw things at the wall, I guess. Is that the saying? Things just _happened._ "

Natasha has read the files, she knows that's not completely true. She also understands what Wanda is telling her: the important stuff happened when they just let her be. Natasha nods slowly. "All right. Normally I would say board games with Clint, since you guys are good together, and I think you relax more around him. But—"

"But there's no way I'm playing around in his brain," Wanda finishes for her.

"Yes," Natasha says, softly. It's not an indictment. There are just certain lines Clint can't have crossed anymore. The same lines scare the fuck out of Natasha, but this is too important for fear to be making any of her decisions.

Wanda looks over at her. "What kind of board games are we playing, then?"

"I will destroy you at checkers," Natasha tells her casually.

"Hm," Wanda murmurs. "It's on."

*

In the end, it's not the phone that leads Tony to where the others are, or even the mystery of what the hell Hill was actually doing in New York. Sure, yes, Pepper probably did need her to check on Tony and a few other things. But she also spent several days "in meetings" and Tony knows all about how that can cover a wide range of sins, secrets, or some amalgamation of the two. But it's neither of those things.

It's Friday's data-mining finding a seemingly innocuous article about T'Challa's ascension to the throne. The Accords are mentioned—they always are when a reporter manages to get hold of T'Challa—and he says, "I believe in the oversight my father believed in, but I wish to keep the discussion of how we are managing such oversight evolving. I am not certain that any political body, no matter how well-intentioned, can be entirely trustworthy of the type of power the Accords grant."

It's well reasoned, sensible, particularly given that he's evidently placed his sister in the role of the Black Panther for the moment. It also makes things connect in Tony's mind, a-to-b-to-c, and he knows exactly where everyone is hiding. He keeps the information to himself for a few days before mentioning it to Thor.

Thor cocks his head. "And yet, you are still here."

"Crashing private parties—so tacky," Tony throws off.

Thor doesn't call him on his flippancy. Instead, he says, "It is a good strategy. When his highness T'Chaka began the push for the Accords to be signed I looked into the history of this nation. Wakanda has managed to keep foreigners outside of its borders throughout history, where almost everywhere else has failed at least once."

"Sure," Tony agrees. "But, technically, they are all criminals there. Isolationist or not, Wakanda signed the Accords. Wasn't much chance for them not to, not after Lagos. What the team needs, really, is a country outside of the one-hundred and seventeen signees, with no extradition treaties."

"What is it you are thinking?"

"Do you know," Tony asks, "that I have _always_ wanted to be the leader of my own, semi-free country?"

"I cannot say it comes as a great shock," Thor answers. It's hard to tell whether he's being serious or not. 

Tony ignores him. "It can't be Starkville, that's at best passé, and at worst a bit reminiscent of the bad guy in It's A Wonderful Life. So, no 'ville.'"

"I find I have no idea to what you are referring."

Tony waves a hand. He can force Thor to mainline holiday classics at another time. "Tony Town has the appeal of alliteration, but really, not much else. Starkopia?"

"The Land of Ego?" Thor tosses back, a smiling playing at his lips.

Tony flips him off. "Iron City might as well be some part of Pennsylvania, or somewhere."

"I would call it Frior," Thor says.

Tony glances over at him. "Land of the Frigid, Barren of all Hope?"

"The word the ancient ones who worshipped my kind used to mean 'sanctuary.'"

"Iron Paradise it is," Tony responds.

Thor laughs softly. "It does not matter what you call it, Anthony. It matters that you make it a home for those whom you intend to use it to protect."

Tony can't talk about that yet, isn't ready. "You don’t disapprove of me straddling the fence?"

"When it is the only thing that has put you in a position to be able to provide such safety?" Thor shrugs. "Perhaps I am too amoral for that; or merely too practical."

Practicality sounds better than amorality, but if Tony is honest with himself—and he is, despite his strong preferences otherwise—he knows that he is a little bit of both. He knows that Steve broke the law to save Bucky, and Tony broke the law intending to save Steve. The line between what is moral and what is right is often blurry to Tony, and he can never quite convince himself that it shouldn't be.

"All right, Pinky," Tony says, clapping his hands together. "Let's go buy a small nation."

*

In the middle of a lackadaisical game of Boggle, Wanda says, "We made the choice. Pietro and I, we volunteered."

Natasha has her own opinions on that, given that they were eleven at the time, and living on the streets, but she keeps her thoughts to herself. Wanda doesn't talk much, and Natasha is invested in listening when Wanda chooses to do so.

Wanda folds her legs up into a pretzel and says, "You didn't. He didn't."

Natasha tilts her head. "Wanda?"

"You're volunteering now, because you want to help him, but I think—I think in the back of your mind this is like so many things before. It feels like I will take if given the chance."

"I don't—"

Wanda shakes her head. "No, that's not the point. I would be hesitant as well. Who wouldn't be? But maybe we need to start easier. Think of…think of something good. A memory, preferably, but a wish might work as well."

Natasha takes a breath and forces herself to relax. Wanda _won't_ take anything from her, not if it can be helped. And if Wanda does, and it gets them a step closer to fixing Bucky, well, Natasha will gladly give one memory, two, however many it takes. She finds that the first thing that comes to mind is the year Phil finally made her participate in the office Secret Santa. All right, it's bittersweet—she misses Phil—but there's still the sweetness.

Phil had rigged it—he'd _always_ rigged it—so that Natasha had received Melinda's name. Melinda was easy to buy for back then, before Bahrain. She liked kitchen doo-dads, and Natasha had found fruit-infusing ice balls, which seemed useful for summer cocktails. They'd even had a few cocktails with them before things had gone to shit, the two of them on the balcony where Andrew had grown herbs.

It's a series of good memories, and even if they come with a sting, they're still real. Wanda's breathing picks up and she says, "Yes, okay, I—"

And suddenly there are details Natasha had forgotten: he ribbon she'd hesitated over because she'd never wrapped a present before and wasn't certain what was just enough and what was too much; the winter storm that had roiled outside the day they were supposed to give gifts, how Maria hadn't been able to make it in, so they'd waited; the genuinely apprehensive look on Woo's face when Natasha had opened hers to find a selection of Urban Decay nail polishes.

Natasha blinks and stands, trying to slow the influx of information. Wanda puts her hands up, and though no red issues from them, the images stop. She says, "Sorry, I—I will work on control."

Natasha isn't worried about that at the moment. "No, that was excellent. Conditioning is the connection of memory to trigger. Theoretically, if we can suss out and pull apart the memory or memories either implanted or simply utilized beneath the words, we should be able to undo the loss of control."

"That is a lot of ifs," Wanda says softly. It's not a denial, though, simply a concern.

"Your powers come from a magic stone. If we're going to start putting conditions on reality, can we choose some other time to do it?"

After a second, Wanda laughs. "Sure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, quick note. Huge thanks to those of you who have been reading as this goes along and enjoying, you're the bomb. Due to some stuff, I'm gonna finish this up and then post the rest. I'm NOT abandoning, it's just gonna be a while because there's a way to go and I won't be posting as a WiP. I'm SUPER sorry for those of you who were actually waiting for updates, but I promise, promise, I'm just writing it the way I normally do things and I'll get it up when it's done, 'kay? Thanks, and again, sorry!


	9. All the Memories to Follow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T'challa offers some resources. Tony makes a subtle peace offering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is finished. I've just learned from extensive reading that posting in chapters seems to help everyone at the archive, so I'm posting a chapter a day until it's all posted, probably Wednesday.
> 
> Please note that if you look at the publication date on this story, it began in May 2016, and I stopped posting not that much after that. This is to say, when I began this story, BP in the MCU had barely begun pre-production and we had NO idea what it would look like. Shuri's presence in the film had not yet been announced and would not be for sometime, let alone any information about her. Inasmuch, **Shuri in this fic always was and continues to be based on comics!Shuri (in particular, Dark Reign and Nation Under Our Feet runs).**
> 
> I want to give a huge thanks to Copperbadge for standing by me through the last two years as I abandoned this thing and came back to it over an over again. He looked over each chapter, but all mistakes are mine and probably because I chose not to listen to him. I also want to hug anyone who was here in good faith the first time around, and who comes in good faith this time, and apologize to all those who got kind of screwed by me deciding to finish this in my own time.

Natasha's been keeping T'Challa in the loop about the exercises between her and Wanda, partly because it seems only polite to let him know they're messing around with powers in his territory, partly because she owes him, a bit, and partly because it means now that they've finally started getting somewhere, he knows enough to offer, "Would it help to have one of our psychological professionals working on it with you?"

It goes against every instinct Natasha has to accept outside help. For precisely that reason, she made sure to talk this all out with Clint, who isn't exactly Mr. Trusting, but is pretty good at providing the practical element of, "well, we gotta trust someone at some point." And while Wakanda is safe for the moment, the real advantage of it is its technology and resources. It's stupid to be here and not take advantage of that. So she nods and says, "Yes, please, it would."

T'Challa nods. Natasha says, "Well, I've been led to believe running a country keeps a person busy, so—"

"Would you mind staying? For a moment?"

She allows a little bit of her surprise to show. Sure, they're currently on the same side, but she pumped him full of electricity three times _after_ asking him to help her, and she's now part of a group putting his country in danger. It's not the worst grounds she's ever created a friendship upon, but it's hardly ideal. 

He smiles, more than a little wryly. His shoulders drop for a moment, and the extent of his exhaustion is obvious in every line of his body. She asks, "Are you all right?"

For a second, she wishes she could take it back. It's too much like standing next to Tony, watching him with his hand on his heart in the periphery of her vision, too much like knowing he was going to lie to her, that she hadn't earned the trust of his vulnerability, not really. It's too fucking much like Nick saying, "I wasn't sure who to trust."

She hates admitting it, but it's why she chose Steve and Clint in the end, why she'll choose them every time: because they do trust her. Whether she deserves their trust or not, they have given it to her, and she won't betray that, not in the end, not ever.

To her surprise, instead of waving off the concern, T'Challa says, "I miss my father."

Natasha knows she has nothing to offer in the face of that. "Would you—if you wanted to talk, I could listen. I don't remember having a family, not before my training, but I…well, I'm a very good listener." And if that is only because she has been taught to listen for the things people don't want her to hear, it doesn't matter. That was one of the first things Clint made her see: her skills are her own, regardless of how she acquired them. Nobody but Natasha gets to decide what to do with those skills anymore. Her signature on a piece of paper says otherwise, but her presence on Wakanda is proof of it.

T'Challa shakes his head. "That is not what I meant to say."

Natasha curls the corner of her mouth into a half smile. She hadn't even been trying, but she's long gotten used to the fact that such things happen around her. "What did you mean to say?"

"Thank you," he says.

It catches her off guard. He slips into her second of hesitation with, "Regardless of for whom you did it, or why, you kept me from an act that couldn't be undone. One I would have regretted."

Natasha might never have had a family, but she remembers having to fight herself, her own panic when Clint was with Loki, every decision made through a screen of fear and grief that was only barely held at bay. She remembers the months after Phil's death, when reminders would come in the middle of assignments and she'd have to push them to the back of her mind, corner them away for a time when she could afford to lose her breath. "Being a protector, it seems like such an easy thing, sometimes. We decide: I'll be good, for this reason or for this person, or whatever. But then, something happens, something that reminds us that we're more than our actions or our decisions on our best days. Something that reminds us we're human. And it's messy and terrible and hard."

"But we are all human?" He cocks his head to the side, his expression letting her know that despite the uptick of the question, he takes her meaning.

"Well. Not Thor. And Tony's debatable at times, but—"

He's smiling, the smile reaching his eyes, and she finds herself returning it. She nods. "We're all human."

"Even so, you have my thanks."

"Then we're even," Natasha tells him.

He doesn't say anything, and Natasha has the feeling that for the first time in a long time, she's lost an argument.

*

As much as Tony sometimes pretends otherwise, Steve wasn't the only legend in his life growing up. It's just that unlike Steve, Peg wasn't a ghost.

She was the one woman aside from Tony's mom who could get Howard to listen. She was the person who bought Tony a Captain America Bear and a Bucky Bear for his fifth birthday and had expressively rolled her eyes when Howard had complained about them not being very beneficial to Tony's mental growth. She was one of the first people Tony had lashed out at when he was thirteen and being bullied and uncertain of his father's support.

Tony's pretty sure she forgave him, but he'd never had the courage to ask. He'd never had the courage to seek out her friendship as an adult. On his list of regrets, it registers pretty high.

The first time he met Sharon he was already in college, home on a break, and she was a whirlwind in pigtails, deeply uninterested in him, but three-fourths to in love with the 'bot he was building as soon as she'd seen it. Tony'd allowed her to hang around because she asked pretty good questions for a kid, and well, he'd known what it was like, having to be the only kid around his parents and Peg.

Since that first time, Tony has only really seen glimpses of her, here and there. A newspaper clipping caught in one of his algorithims, the graduation announcements Peg sent, the holding compound in Berlin where she'd eyed him like she wasn't certain what species of predator she was dealing with. But she'd also led him to Barnes when it was necessary, fought alongside Tony in those moments.

There had been a weird dissonance for him, a realization that in some ways, she was still that little girl with pigtails and a fondness for small mechanical creatures.

When he picks up a call from Maria late on a Wednesday and a voice on the other end who is most definitely not Maria says, "Maria said to call on this phone. She said you'd pick up. Listen," he knows it's Sharon without having to be told, like her voice is one of the countless facts his memory has recorded for no particular reason.

He thinks, _this is going to get messy,_ but he says, "I'm listening."

"I—" There's a pause. "Actually, I have no idea what to say. You don't know me. Aunt Peggy always said that she wasn't surprised when you, and I quote, 'turned super hero,' but to me you were confusing as hell. There was that kid who built cool things in quiet corners and there was that epic dickface I was always seeing on TV and I had no idea who you were. Are. I still don't."

Tony has long gotten used to not poking at his own wounds, forcibly drowning out the ones others would allow. He asks, "Do you need to?"

"Maria says you can give me a job and settle me somewhere I won't have to keep running until, and again, direct quote, 'we straighten the Accords bullshit out into something that makes sense,' so, yeah. Yeah, I really do."

Tony is aware of his weaknesses, he just prefers to ignore them in favor of focusing on his strengths. That said, having to explain himself to others: one of his weaknesses. Still, "If you think I'm going to cross Pepper and Hill, you've bought into the theory that I'm actually insane."

"Yeah, no, you'll go toe to toe with the Winter Soldier with a wrist doo-dad, sure, but cross your CEO and head of security? Never." Then, after a beat, "that actually makes sense when I say it aloud."

Also, _Maria and Pepper._ But it's fine, she gets the point. Tony looks down at the schematics he's been fussing with for over two hours now. They're for Rhodey's legs. Tony's managed the cooling system, and Rhodey has gotten fairly handy at actually maneuvering them, but there's room for improvement. There's always room for improvement.

Tony shuts his eyes against the way the room spins a bit. Sleep has been a battle, and one that, more often than not, Tony has chosen to not even bother fighting lately. 

Sharon asks, "Tony? Are you still there?"

"You can't come here," he says, because there are too many facts that are true, and that's the one that comes out first. Rhodey's already on the fence about Thor, and Thor's not technically running from any authorities. Even so, Tony's closing on his new Island Paradise for Broken Superheroes in less than a month, and he already has plans for housing and labs that will keep Jane there, and Bruce, whenever he chooses to resurface.

"I wasn't—"

"How are you with politics? Diplomacy?"

"Um. Better and worse than Aunt Peggy, depending on the instance, I guess."

"If I gave you citizenship in a sovereign territory, had Pepper use backchannels to clear your name, and set you up to work on a viable solution to the Avengers working as a private entity within other sovereign territories, could you make it happen?"

He hears her sigh. "It would probably depend on what you count as a viable solution," she admits.

"Haven't gotten that far, pigtails."

She laughs a bit at that. It's quiet, he barely hears it, but he does. She says, "I can't promise anything."

It's enough for Tony that she's not lying to him.

*

Dr. Olabisi Gueye has that look distinguished older women sometimes manage, the one where they could be anywhere between mid-sixties to verging on late nineties, and it's impossible to know. She wears her hair in a long, thick silver braid, all of her lab coats are rich, bright colors, and her hands never stop moving.

The first session she sits in on with Natasha and Wanda she asks questions for two hours straight, pausing only long enough to listen to the answers and take notes, which she does in markers on a large pad. Less than a week later, Dr. Gueye suggests that Wanda latch onto an emotion, a small one, and see if she can "follow" it to its origin.

Wanda chooses impatience—which, if she'd mentioned to Natasha that's what she was going with, Natasha would have suggested something else—and promptly flushes bright red and curses at length in Sokovian when she finds the origin, about ten minutes later. Natasha, basically just sitting there and waiting for something to happen, cocks her head at Wanda.

Wanda spits out, "He's like my bro—father."

Natasha isn't going to touch the issue of Wanda avoiding even saying the word "brother," not just now. "What?"

"Clint promised—" Wanda screws up her face. "I know why you're impatient. That's all."

And okay, if Natasha had the ability to be embarrassed by anything to do with sex, she might feel a little flustered herself. If she ever had that type of sensitivity, it's long since been trained out of her. Instead, she smirks. "Next time, ask, if you want a safe emotion."

Wanda opens her mouth, but then closes it. After a second, she looks over at Dr. Gueye and smiles. "I did it."

Dr. Gueye arches an eyebrow at Natasha. "Mind if we keep you a bit longer, dear?"

Natasha isn't fooled: Dr. Gueye's husband serves on the king's council. He's well respected and moves like a retired warrior. Natasha will put money on the fact that those two are wild in the sack. She gives her politest smile and says, "The anticipation is what makes it so good."

Dr. Gueye laughs. "Well then. Suggest a safer emotion for our ingénue to journey along."

Natasha thinks for a moment, not used to considering any of her emotions _safe_. Then she remembers the sparring session Shuri has promised her later in the week and offers, "Curiosity."

*

Sam goes on another diplomacy jaunt with Shuri and comes back a week later with a message from Maria. Sam tells Steve and Natasha, "Tony's hiding Sharon."

It's either the carefully blank expression Natasha responds to that with or the uncomprehending frown that is Steve's response, but Sam elaborates, "To keep her safe. Evidently she came to Maria for help and Maria had her ask Tony and he agreed."

The Tony-shaped knot that has been sitting in Natasha's throat since the hospital seems to shrink a bit. Thor—Thor is one thing. He's part of the team and he hasn't made any moves for or against Tony. But Sharon's something else altogether. Helping Sharon is as clear a peace offering as Tony can make, and he's too smart not to know it.

Steve must realize this too. He's still tense, and Natasha doesn't think he's sleeping very much, but he says, "Well, then I guess we know she'll be all right."

Natasha says, "Steve."

Steve shakes his head, smiling in a way that's too sharp. "I just wish he'd call, is all."

Natasha shares a look with Sam, glad to see that at least they're on the same page. She lets Sam be the one to say, "You could call him."

Steve walks to the windows, crossing his arms over his chest. "I wrote him a letter."

If Natasha were given to melodrama, she would be banging her head against the nearest wall right now. "Seriously, Rogers?"

Steve throws her a look over his shoulders. Sam rocks back on his feet, his gaze shifting between the two of them. The problem is, Sam is good at getting Steve, but he doesn't know Tony, not really. For most of the time that he's been an Avenger, Tony's been somewhat adjunct to the team.

Natasha blows out a breath. "Jesus, Steve. Yeah, you wrote him a letter. You also accused him of breaking up the team and evidently left him stranded in Siberia with a dead suit. I'm not saying this has been anyone's finest few months, or anything, but this is _Tony._ He probably thinks that letter means 'if you're bleeding to death while being tortured by your own employees and Satan is coming out of the ground to get you, you can consider calling me.'"

Steve turns around to look at her, glancing over at Sam, who says, "I'm pretty sure she's making a lot of good points, man."

Natasha bites back the urge to grumble that she _always_ makes good points. She manages to keep silent for about three seconds before the frustration that's been boiling underneath her skin at _both_ Tony and Steve and the way they'll rip the damn world apart to "save" things threatens to burn her alive. "Also, I'm just guessing here, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was an _accurate_ reading. Because I know you, okay, and yeah, maybe you're not pissed at him anymore, but you were and you probably didn't wait through that completely to write that letter, so whatever fun little tidbits of shade you threw, they might have suggested you weren't wholly on board with him just calling to chat." 

Steve blinks at her. Sam gives her a thumbs up.

She closes her eyes and thinks about the feel of high-thread cotton sheets beneath her fingers, the taste of pineapple juice, the sound of Clint's rumblings in the mornings. When she's calm, she opens her eyes and says, "If you can't—won't—call, at least send me and Wanda. Let us figure out if a call would be welcome, or not."

She's ninety-nine percent certain it would be. But she needs to see Tony, to be in the same space with him, hear his voice, to know for sure.

Steve leans back against the window and asks, "You know you're not beholden to me, here? I haven't any authority over either of you."

Something that feels a little like fear and a lot like anger furls in her chest. "If you think that's why I've ever followed you, even for a moment—"

Steve puts up a hand. "No, Nat. I know. I know it's not. But I needed to say it."

She swallows hard. "You once said you'd trust me with your life."

"Without thinking," he agrees.

She's pretty sure she knows what she's asking when she says, "Trust me with Tony, Steve."

He shakes his head. "No. That's—I'm trusting you with us."

For most of her life, Natasha has known that fucking something up would mean her death, or the deaths of those she was tasked with protecting. This time, it feels like there's infinitely more on the line.

*

If it were just Tony Natasha was concerned about, she'd have Shuri drop Wanda and her near the Compound, and go in one of the back ways she created with Clint. But Rhodey's at the Compound, and Natasha doesn't want to put that on him, not even accidentally. He's got enough to be going on with without having to decide where he stands in regard to law and order and Tony and his teammates.

Clint, who agrees with her on this subject, says, "Old tricks, then."

"Got an idea?" she asks. She could come up with one, but if he's already got something in mind, she's not going to turn down a perfectly good, already completed plan. And all jokes aside, Clint doesn't fuck around when it comes to her safety.

Clint shrugs. "Hide in plain sight. He's speaking at a conference in Valencia in a couple of weeks. Pretty sure he's using it as a way to do something else, maybe just vacation, who knows, but it's a little more low key than he usually bothers with. Which makes it solid for our purposes."

He's pacing while she sits on the sofa, and she reaches out and pokes him with a toe. "You pissed that I'm going without you, or that I'm taking Wanda?"

He stills and then comes and sits down, pulling her into his lap. "I'm not pissed. You know I depend on being able to see things. I just don't like it, you and Wanda being that far out of my range of sight."

"Sam and Shuri are both going to be there."

"I know, and I'm not kidding myself that Shuri couldn't kick my ass blindfolded, and I trust Sam. It just doesn't matter."

"I know," Natasha says. He laughs at that. He's not amused, she can tell, but appreciative of her understanding. She presses herself further against him. "If it helps, I'm not thrilled to be leaving you behind, but c'mon. Someone's gotta make sure Steve doesn't disappear into the jungle and join a band of gorillas. Sam's gonna be with me, and Bucky's still napping, so, it's all on you, Barton."

"We're screwed," he informs her.

"Eh, he can probably survive the average gorilla rage attack. Worse comes to worst, just make sure you know where he's making camp and we'll take Bucky out there in a few months and lure him back to civilization."

"I can handle that."

She smiles a little. "I know. Watching out for us, it's your thing."

"Mm." He watches her for a moment. "Keeping us together. That's become your thing, huh?"

"Tony thinks it's just that I've never stopped learning to play both sides."

"No he doesn't, and you know it. Whatever else, we both know one of Tony's greatest strengths is the ability to find the best way to drive the people he cares for far, far away. It's his fucking superpower."

"Doesn't make it not true."

"First of all, I'm going to kick his ass for saying that to you before we make up, so I can get it all out at once, and secondly, who cares if it _is_ true? What does it matter how you do things, so long as we end up together?"

Put that way, Natasha's not sure, but, "Seems like it should. Ends justifying the means, and all that."

"When has what should be true ever really mattered in our lives?"

She sighs, resting her head against his. "You make a solid point."

*

Wanda's evidently been spending some of her free time with Scott, trying to figure out everything she can do. When Natasha looks mildly puzzled by this, Wanda shrugs, "He just comes up with stuff. All the time."

One of her newly discovered talents is the ability to make people unaware of her presence, or the presence of anyone she cares to make "invisible." It makes getting into Tony's hotel room unnervingly easy. He's got security, both technology-based and human, but Natasha knows the types of backdoors Tony creates.

She hopes it's a good sign that he hasn't made new ones, and she's still able to use her knowledge to get to him. 

Once they're in, they sit in the suite's living area in plain sight, playing Crazy Eights, Wanda following the emotions Natasha suggests every few minutes, seeing if she can pull the memories or impetus behind them. Wanda's shuffling for a new game when Tony walks in, stopping a few strides past the door and staring.

Natasha takes in the way his cheekbones are a little too sharp, the too-relaxed way he holds himself. Wanda says, "Tony."

Natasha says, "We come in peace."

It does what it's meant to. Tony rolls his eyes and resumes moving toward them, throwing himself onto the sofa. Natasha asks, "How'd your presentation go?"

"About how they always go: one good question from some guy or gal working with a shoe string and duct tape in BFE that SI's gonna have to snatch up, and a bunch of questions making it clear that nobody else had any idea what the fuck I was talking about."

Natasha tilts her head. "I'd think one in a room of a couple hundred would be a good ratio for you."

The little huff of laughter that escapes him only accentuates how exhausted he looks. She knows better than to comment on it; it won't get her anywhere. She tries, "How's Rhodey?"

It's a calculated risk. It will either bring him to them, or crack the thin ice on which she's already skating. For a long moment, she thinks it will be the latter. 

He shakes his head. "It's a work in progress. He can get around on his own, but it's exhausting for him."

"You will solve the problem," Wanda says quietly. There's nothing flippant in the comment.

Tony raises an eyebrow at her. She says, "You are nothing if not determined."

A series of complicated emotions pass over Tony's face too fast even for Natasha to read and he asks, "What are you doing here?"

Natasha tucks her knees to her chest and says, "I came to say I was sorry. I mostly brought Wanda as body armor."

"Ha. Ha." Tony rolls his eyes.

"Tony," Natasha says. "All Steve said about Siberia was that you came as a friend, and that Zemo had information about your parent's death and things went sideways. But it was—Zemo proved the Winter Soldier had done it, didn't he?"

Tony's jaw tightens. "Evidently I was the only idiot out of the loop."

Wanda is looking between them, trying to put missing pieces together, no doubt. Natasha says, "I—I'm sorry. Both for not telling you, and because it didn't occur to me to."

Tony swallows. "Yeah, well, keeping secrets, kind of your thing."

It's softer than his earlier accusation of deeply bred habits, but not by much. Natasha forces herself not to flinch. "No, I mean, yes, but that—I missed the part where…I don't remember _having_ a family, Tony. I watch and I learn and sometimes I figure out what’s normal and what's not, but I don't _get_ it. I never will, probably. I understand, intellectually, that they were your parents and that means something, but I don't always know what it means."

There's a sort of dumbstruck silence for a moment before Tony says, "As excuses go, that's a pretty good one."

In the quiet that follows, Wanda speaks up. "I came to say hi. And as body armor. But mostly the first."

Tony smiles, just a little, at her. "It's not that—that is, it's good, seeing you. Both of you. But you have to go back and stay safe for a few more months. I'm working on a plan, one that will actually keep us together, this time, I think."

"A few months is a long time," Wanda opines. "Come visit."

"I—" He looks at Natasha. "Am I welcome?"

Natasha shrugs. "Clint's gonna kick your ass. Then hug you. Probably mostly to be an asshole and press on the bruises. But there's also the suite of rooms Steve's been saving for you. And the phone he's been keeping on him every second of the clock."

"Barnes?" he asks.

"Does Clint blame the people who are still angry at him for the stuff he did while Loki-ed?"

Tony looks down, and Wanda repeats her sentiment, "Come to us, Tony."

Natasha's not even sure how she knows, but something in the set of Tony's shoulders tells her they've won the point.

*

"You don't like it," Sam says.

Shuri turns over and shoves the comforter down a bit. She enjoys burrowing. "The idea of Tony Stark in my sovereign territory? Not particularly, but in fairness, I'm not thrilled with Steve Rogers being there either. White, Western males have always been something my country strove to keep as far from our borders as possible."

"But Clint and Scott don't bother you?"

"Clint will go wherever Natasha leads, and Scott reminds me of every puppy I've ever trained. At first I was, hm, discomfited by them, I suppose, but it's a hard feeling to hold onto in their presence."

Sam smiles at the observations. "What about Wanda? She's the most dangerous of us, you realize?"

Shuri props herself up on an elbow. "Are you counting your Winter Soldier, or is he in ice time out?"

"I'm including him. Although, joking aside, I'm not sure he fits into your White, Western male equation."

"And why is that?"

Sam raises an eyebrow. "Answer my question about Wanda first."

"Big cats are dangerous. Poisonous spiders. But if you leave them alone, they generally return the favor. And Wanda isn't even a predator. White men have largely shown themselves to be." She pauses. "Wanda, I suspect, has been the prey of white men and their politics herself far too often to make the transition to predator smoothly."

Sam nods. "Steve's not. A predator. I know just saying it—"

"I know. I do." She leans forward to kiss him. "You're not the type to pledge loyalty to a predator."

Sam appreciates the vote of confidence. He also hears what she does not say: it's one thing to know rationally, another thing to know emotionally. He runs a hand over his face. "In fairness, Tony's really not either."

She laughs and falls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. "No, Stark is an elephant. His damage is never intentional, but it's left behind all the same."

He's aware that at the end of the day, the two aren't always different. But they've all left behind damage they didn't intend, every last one of them. He's willing to bet Shuri has as well. Which is why he says, "He doesn't know he's human. The Winter Soldier, Bucky, not really. He—he's damn good at pretending. I think he probably even has real flashes. But there are little things, tells, where it's like he's working _too_ hard for it. Especially in front of Steve."

If Sam is honest with himself, this is a huge part of why he pulls Bucky's pigtails so hard. When the guy is focusing on giving as good as he's getting, it's when he's best at playing the part. Other times, when he tries to make himself smaller, or his face closes off, or he stays too still, those times make Sam sick to his stomach. He's seen the files on what they did to Bucky, and that's just what they recorded. Sam doesn't doubt for a moment there are things that were kept off the files. Seeing the result of it is genuinely nauseating.

Shuri is watching him, face impassive. After a moment, she asks, "Do you think he can remember?"

Sam swallows. "Steve said that—in Siberia, Tony asked Bucky if he remembered killing Tony's parents. And Bucky said he remember all of them. All of the victims. It's … that's got to mean something, right? That he remembers the humanity of others?"

"I would like to think so."

For Steve's sake, for all of their sakes, Sam would like to think so, too. He sighs shortly and glances over at the clock. "Think we can get another hour of sleep in before you have to go be a diplomat?"

Shuri throws the covers back over her head and groans. "Fuck. I fucking hope so."

*

The second time Wanda follows one of Natasha's top-level emotions to an underlying cause not even Natasha recognized as being present, Dr. Gueye asks, "Are you scared of this Bucky?"

Natasha frowns. "No. I mean, no more than is healthy, in any case, given the triggers."

Dr. Gueye's, "I wasn't asking you," is soft. She keeps her gaze on Wanda.

Wanda gets up from where she's been sitting pretzel-style in the middle of the room and paces. "You know I'm not."

Dr. Gueye does look at Natasha, then. Natasha frowns, and stands, not getting in Wanda's way, but placing herself in Wanda's periphery. "Wanda."

Wanda stops and tugs at a lock of hair. "What if I make it worse? You're trusting me, Steve is trusting me, everyone is trusting me, but sometimes I try my best and people—people end up dead."

"Yes," Dr. Gueye says, walking over to them. Natasha watches her, forcing herself to trust that the other woman has a point, that she doesn't intend Wanda harm. The doctor plants herself in front of Wanda, who flinches, but doesn't otherwise try to get away.

"Yes," Dr. Gueye repeats, "that has happened. And I say as someone who lost friends in that moment that an undue burden was placed on your head because you are young and female and without family and from a part of the world that grants you no privilege or protection. Where my king was right to speak up in defense of our people, of our loss, perhaps in waiting until something affected us directly and placing emphasis on that instance was not the most shining example of our principals."

Wanda sniffles, wiping angrily at her own eyes. "I don't—"

"The Accords were not sparked by you, Ms. Maximoff." Dr. Gueye lays a hand gently over Wanda's arm. "They were put on your back, after a trail of incidents led there."

"Neither New York nor D.C. were our faults," Natasha says, clenching her jaw to keep the rest of her thoughts inside. She could almost wish they'd let Loki and his snake-bug aliens take over the world. That would clearly make people happier.

"No," Dr. Gueye agrees. "Moreso, they were defensive moves on your home territory. I agree that those who are complaining over the damage inflicted there have no legs to stand on."

Sokovia lies between them, and Natasha will let some of the blame fall on her. If for no other reason than that she _knows_ Tony, they all do. The minute he took the staff they should have known he would try something quixotic and liable to end badly. She was busy worrying too much about the remnants of Hydra and not enough about her teammates.

Sokovia, though, is clearly what Dr. Gueye is getting at, the way Sokovia leads directly back to Tony, who might not have meant harm—might have intended the opposite—but caused enormous amounts. And yet, somehow, the Accords never came about until after Lagos. Until after there was a young woman without nation or home or family who could be scapegoated.

Wanda clears her throat. "Does it really matter? That my crime was less destructive? That—"

"Yes," Dr. Gueye cuts her off. "Yes, it matters. And intention matters, even if we have all kinds of sayings about how it doesn't. It does. Nobody can promise you that your powers won't cause harm when you are simply trying your best. Nobody. But what is the alternative?"

Wanda looks over at Natasha. Natasha thinks wryly, _I only_ act _like I know everything._ What she says aloud is, "I'll find a way to bring So—bring Bucky back. We will. But I don't think we should _have_ to look any further. Because I think you can do it."

Wanda's laugh is more than a little watery. "You can't just tell me there are no alternatives? That I am his only hope, for better or worse?"

Natasha can't do that. Not only because it leaves Wanda, who has been without choices all too often, without a choice. But because while the truth might not be all things to all people, there are times when it shouldn't be ignored. "You aren't his only hope. But I believe you are his best hope."

"As do I," Dr. Gueye adds.

Wanda exhales shakily. "Okay. Let's—let's tell Cap we're ready to wake Bucky up."

*

Waking is always familiar in its lack of familiarity. There's no context except cold, muscles that have tensed in the ascent to wakefulness, the sharpness of each breath, a million pin pricks in the lungs. His head hurts, and a voice inside him says, "like eating ice cream too fast," but he can't place the voice, or even understand what it's trying to tell him.

He's done this before, he _remembers_ , and yet it's distant, jumbled in other things he can remember, and the disorientation of memory being present at all. Something touches his arm, his real one. It burns but he does not scream, he does not, the Soldier—the Asset—

"Bucky," a voice says, the same voice that warned the Soldier about the ice cream.

Wait, not the Soldier. Bucky shakes his head to clear the echoes of sense-memory, to try and ground himself in the present. He forces his eyes open and Steve is there, steady and warm—too warm, the hand on Bucky's arm still intense—and smiling. Steve says, "Hey there, easy."

Steve tucks a blanket around Bucky's shoulders. "The doc says we have to wait a few hours before we can give you anything by mouth. But when you're ready to get up and move around, he suggests a lukewarm bath with some Epsom salts. They're still a thing."

Bucky is only just managing to properly find Steve in his memories. If he ever knew about Epsom salt, the memory is either lost or dormant. There are no clues in Steve's voice as to whether Bucky should be able to move yet or not, but patience isn't something Bucky associates with being taken off the ice. "I—I'm ready."

Steve says, "Maybe so, pal, but I'm gonna let the doc weigh in on that."

Bucky nods, quietly relieved. Just holding his body in sitting position feels like so much effort. He doesn't even realize it when his eyes drift shut and then Steve is saying, "Whoa there," and there are hands supporting Bucky's torso, and—oh. Evidently he's listed a bit to the side. Steve helps lower Bucky all the way down to the medical bed. It's strange, meeting with a padded surface.

The chair was padded, but it was different. There were never blankets in the chair, Steve's hand never carded gently through Bucky's hair when he was in the chair. This is much better than the chair.

"Sleep, Buck. We can get you that bath and some soup when you wake."

The voice is so confident, but in the dark it feels like a dream, and Bucky panics, struggling upward from the sleep trying to claim him. His breathing becomes faster, the needles that were fading digging in sharper, and Steve says, "Shit, what did I say?"

Bucky takes in Steve's face, the classically defined lines, the corn-fed blue-eyes-blond-hair almost-caricature of it. There are worry lines at the edges of his eyes, over his nose. They echo the Steve Bucky grew up with so clearly that for a moment the lines blur. Bucky says, "Steve."

Steve must hear what Bucky can't even string together as a thought, let alone ask. He says, "I'm gonna be right here. You'll wake up and still be safe."

Bucky might not know how to ask with words, but muscle memory is burnt deeper than emotion, even, and he finds himself moving to one side of the hospital bed without even feeling himself move. Steve's muscles know this routine, too, because he just swings himself into the bed and fusses a bit until they're settled.

Pinned under Steve's weight, Bucky's conscious enough of his freedom to allow sleep to come.

*

Steve is sleeping when Bucky awakes. The edges of everything seem a bit sharper. Bucky's still cold, but he can breathe, and his muscles respond to basic commands. Steve murmurs, buries his face deeper into Bucky's shoulder and for a brief second, memory and the present collide and Bucky's in Brooklyn on a February morning, not wanting to get out of bed, go to work, worry about whether Steve's lungs will make it through another day.

Then the clean white of the sheets and his scrubs penetrates, the density of Steve, the way the air smells of antiseptic and something Bucky can't quite identify. In any case, it's not the mold and the refuse of the tenements, the faint, heroic waft of Mrs. Gold's cinnamon bread.

He opens his eyes and watches a few of the medical personnel move about. Nobody seems to be paying attention to him. He doesn't doubt he's being monitored, but they're being circumspect about it. Bucky can't decide if he prefers that or not.

Regardless, he's parched and yet somehow needs a toilet, so he gently pries Steve away from him, scrunching up the blanket to give Steve something to curl around. The kiss he drops on the crown of Steve's head is instinct, and he doesn't allow himself to think about it. Also, Steve's fucking precious, all curled up like that. Bucky will punch anyone who says otherwise. He might only have one arm at the moment, but he can make it count.

He blinks down at the floor, trying to follow the righteous indignation behind the thought, but it slips away, leaving him feeling a little dizzy. He draws in a breath and goes to find the restroom. He'd used it before they'd put him under. Usually layouts are something that stick in his mind, assuming they're not stripped. 

He finds the room quickly enough and makes use, splashing his face after washing his hands. The water is pleasantly warm and it takes him longer than it should to shut it off. Hydra would have put him under a faucet of boiling water if he'd taken his time with showers or hygiene in general just to enjoy the heat. Hydra _did_ , once.

He remembers the lessons. They left all of those. Or maybe there's just no erasing the echo of that kind of pain, that type of terror and helplessness. There's no erasing the faces of the victims he'd had to go in close on, the limp immediacy of having stolen a life from two buildings away from the ones he hadn't.

They'd tried. And sometimes, for a few days after the wipes, it would take. Those few days always came to an end, though.

Bucky shudders and then forcibly shakes his muscles out. He opens the door and several feet away is…Talia. Natasha now, he guesses. His memories of her are a disjointed, fractured mess, but he remembers—"You liked to put your hand up against mine. The metal one. The difference in size made you giggle."

"You liked to make sure I got up after being kicked down," she says. She's, well, not big, but bigger. Her eyes are the same, though. Large and too old. Unflinching.

"I shot you." The nightmare of Berlin comes back in a flash and he adds, "And choked you."

The side of her mouth quirks up. "With friends like these, huh?"

"Ta—Natasha."

"You can, if you want, that is, you can call me Talia."

He doesn't know what he wants. If he thinks about it too hard, he's not even sure he remembers what want feels like. He doesn't think too hard. "Talia, then. You—Steve trusts you."

She nods. "He's—I'm part of his team."

"You got out." His throat feels even more dry than it did a moment ago. There are emotions pounding at every wall he's built, every dam he's stored up. So many of them, some he doesn't even know how to parse.

"I had a lot of help." She takes a step toward him. "And—I, there was someone who showed me that kindness was possible, that sometimes people were good, down deep."

Bucky shakes his head, but she just takes another step, and then another, until she's standing in his space. And once again it's like time collapses, and she's that tiny, precocious dancer, that quicksilver fighter, that _child_ caught in the hands of others who won't hesitate to break her. Only now he can pull her in, hold her, and for a moment, a very short, stolen moment, stand between her and the rest of the world.

She comes easily, pressing into him, and even after he thoroughly expects it, never struggles to be let go.

*

Eventually, in spite of the fact that all she wants to do is fall asleep against the broad expanse of Bucky's chest, in the protective circle of his arm, Natasha makes herself say, "I bet you could use some food."

"Steve said the doctor had to say it was okay."

"Let's go ask him then, yeah?"

Bucky's slow to withdraw his arm and when Natasha steps back, she looks up at him and says, "We can do that again later. Whenever."

He runs a hand through his hair and looks away. She doesn't push. She remembers her first years on the outside, when she lived by shutting everything away, terrified that if she so much as tried to really taste something, everything would overwhelm her. And she hadn't been dealing with extreme memory loss. She says, "C'mon."

He follows her and they find Dr. Ibori in his office. She's gotten somewhat friendly with the man over the weeks of coming in to check on Bucky. The doctor has been incredibly patient with all of them, when she's sure he's wanted nothing more than to tell them nothing had changed and to leave him alone to get work done. He smiles at her when she stands in the doorway and says, "Natasha."

"Dr. Ibori. We were wondering if it'd be okay to get Bucky some food."

He stands up and comes out from behind his desk. "Probably." He looks behind her, where Bucky is standing and says, "May I check your vitals quickly?"

Natasha catches Bucky's short intake of breath, but she doubts Dr. Ibori does. Bucky nods and stands rock still as the doctor checks his pulse, heartbeat, pupil, and reflex responsiveness. Dr. Ibori asks, "How're you feeling? Any nausea, headaches?"

Bucky peers at Natasha and for a moment she feels as though she's being asked permission. Then Bucky shakes his head shortly. "Just a bit thirsty, is all, sir."

"Very well." Dr. Ibori wraps his stethoscope over the back of his neck. "Liquids only for the next twelve hours, but then, assuming nothing's come back up, you can start on solid foods. I suggest things that are easily digestible for a couple of days, after that, anything should be fine. Try to let yourself sleep whenever you feel like it for the next day or two. If you start running a fever, develop a headache, or experience any symptom you haven't previously, come back immediately."

Bucky blinks slowly and it's one thing for Natasha to understand that not only has nobody ever taken care of him after he's come out of the ice, they've actively dismissed his needs, and another to watch the aftermath of it, where he doesn't even understand why he's being told to take care with himself. She forces a casual smile and says, "Heard and understood, doctor. We'll watch over him."

The doctor snorts. "I don't doubt it."

She herds Bucky out of the infirmary and to the rooms she shares with Clint. She texts Steve, "he's at my place," and then pours Bucky a glass of water and rifles through the pantry until she finds the chicken broth Clint uses as a base for half his dishes. She empties it into a pan and sets the stove on low heat.

Clint comes in, clearly having been on the range. He stops at the door and says, "Hey. I didn't know we had company."

Then he steps forward, offering his hand. "We didn't really get to meet. I'm Clint."

Bucky shakes, saying quietly, "Bucky."

"Glad to see you up and about, man." Clint glances over at Natasha. "Want me to see if I can find Wanda? I'll make some coffee, we'll talk about things."

Natasha looks at Bucky. He's sipping his water slowly, like someone who knows all too well what happens after chugging. He's got his eyes on the counter, but his shoulders are tight. Still, delaying isn't going to help anyone. "Find Wanda. Wake up Steve. Get Sam here. If he's with Shuri, ask her if she and her brother have a moment, and if anyone can find Dr. Gueye."

Unexpectedly, Bucky speaks up. "You get Steve here, he's gonna make me take an Epsom salt bath and another nap before you can start whatever it is you've figured out to help."

Clint laughs. Natasha stirs the broth and says mildly, "It'll keep for a few hours. Wouldn't want Steve to die of Mother Hen Disease."

*

Bucky knows his memories are spotty, undependable, and possibly, in places, completely corrupted, but he is sure of this one thing: "We did not have baths like this growing up. Or in the war."

Steve laughs. "Yeah, I had sort of the same reaction, only with the one I had at the Tower, which was even more ridiculous than this."

Bucky considers the sleek wooden lines of the tub, the jets that lie where his back will line up if he lies back. "That's not a bathing tub; [that's a bathing pool.](http://www.decoist.com/2013-01-23/stunning-bathtubs-for-two/elegant-whirlpool-tub-with-wooden-border/)"

Steve makes another sound of amusement and moves to pour some of the salt crystals so that they line the bottom of the tub. He fiddles with the taps and says, "Come over here and decide how warm you want it. I talked to the doctor, he said your temperature was basically at base level, so you could go as hot as you want."

Bucky runs his hand under the tap and lets the heat build. He wants to melt into it. Steve sets a pair of towels so fluffy Bucky half expects them to bound off like rabbits on the edge of the tub and says, "Take as long as you want."

Steve leaves him then. Bucky focuses on the sound of the water so the room won't be too quiet. His heart is racing. Isolation meant safety for so long. He remembers this fact, even if he can't quite reach the emotion behind it. It meant nobody hurting him, nobody controlling him. It _still_ means that, so he's not certain why it causes a spike of panic now.

He shakes his head and dips a toe in the water. It's a little too warm at the moment, but he'll adjust. He doesn't want to add any cold water. He wants the steam beginning to fog the room to fill his lungs, absorb into his skin, cover him and break up the ice that's no longer really there except in his mind.

It takes him a moment to notice that even in the tub, he's tucked into himself, as tight and as small as he can force his body to be. Trying to get himself to relax only causes him to tense up further, so he gives up, allows himself to hide. After awhile, the heat climbs up into his muscles and coaxes them into releasing. He's nearly sprawled by the time the water starts to cool, at which point he reaches for the shampoo left on the edge of the tub.

It smells like peppermint and something he doesn't recognize—the bottle says verbena, but he's never heard of that. He rubs it into his scalp and loses some time, the scent seeming to calm him as much as the water. 

The bar of soap has actual oatmeal in it. It scrapes over his skin gently, cleaning away the stagnant air of the cryo-chamber. He stays in the water until it is nearly too cool, and then pulls himself out with his arm. The imbalance of having the other one missing is still off-putting, but he's tired again, hungry, and frightened by both.

He sits on the edge of the tub, wrapped in a towel until he can winnow down the fear to something manageable. He _knows_ he's allowed to be tired and hungry. Dr. Ibori had said Bucky would be both these things; that the body needed to recover from the trauma of cryo. Bucky had said, "Not the Soldier's body."

And Dr. Ibori had said, "Yes, your body, too. Maybe not as much as the average human, but nonetheless."

 _His_ body. Bucky's been free for over two years now. He'd had his own place in Bucharest. His own mattress, his own fridge, his own shelves, his own journals. He knows what it means to own something. He just…hasn't learned to believe in it. Not in terms of little things. Certainly not in terms of this body.

There's a knock on the door, and Steve calls, "Buck?" his voice flat with enforced calm.

Bucky says, "I'm here."

He's trying to be, in any case.


	10. Melt Your Headaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanda and Bucky begin work on the triggers. And some people visit Wakanda.

Natasha makes herself a smoothie. It even has some spinach in it. Somewhere, Tony is feeling pleased and he's not sure why. It has more blueberries and Greek yogurt and apples, and a type of citrus that grows locally, but Natasha's never encountered elsewhere. 

She sits next to Clint on the couch. Clint's got Wanda tucked against him, all-but hiding under his arm. Dr. Gueye is sitting on the edge of the fireplace, chatting softly with Shuri and Sam, who are both sitting on the floor, their backs to the wall, shoulders pressing up against each other.

T'Challa is sipping coffee at the breakfast bar and nodding along to something Steve is saying. Scott had been invited, but had opted out with the theory, "I mean, he's kinda gonna be overwhelmed anyway, right? And we don't exactly know each other, so I'm thinking I'll do something else. Like, anything else."

Natasha can sympathize with that point of view, and appreciates the consideration it shows. Her appreciation for having one less person in the room spikes when Bucky comes out in the linen pants and t-shirt combo they'd grabbed for him, and goes still for a moment, not-so-subtly putting his back as close to the wall as he can.

Steve doesn't miss the action either, Natasha can see the concern in every line of his body, but he does say, "Hey, Buck. Coffee sound good?"

Bucky does as he's supposed to—and she can see it, how he's playing the part—and nods, says, "Yeah, that—the coffee here any good?"

T'Challa laughs quietly, as Shuri makes a small sound of outrage, and Dr. Gueye says something in the local dialect that Natasha's pretty sure means, "heathen."

Steve pours a cup and pulls the cream from the fridge. Bucky opens his mouth to protest, but Natasha steps up beside him and tells him in Russian, "The docs all said you need the fat. You can argue, but it'll just make Steve feel like he's infringing upon your ability to consent, which will cause him to do the sad puppy face, and nobody except Hydra likes sad-puppy-face Steve."

Clint snorts at this assessment. Bucky blinks, but accepts this with a small nod of his head and takes the proffered coffee from Steve. Everyone else pretends like they haven't heard a word. The magic of people sometimes believing Natasha can kill them with her mind. Look, there's a reason she works to maintain the rumors that surround her. Well, also, she's pretty sure nobody else speaks fluent Russian in the room. Wanda has a few words here and there, but it's mostly slang and stuff that was cross-bred into the Sokovian language. Whatever.

Bucky takes a sip of the coffee and says, "Oh."

"Hm," Natasha agrees, and ushers him onto the loveseat, where Steve can come settle next to him and she can return to Clint's side.

Steve does as expected, and then says, "This is Dr. Gueye. She's been helping Wanda and Natasha work on ways of—um."

"Deprogramming," Natasha says, because Steve flinches even just hearing the word, so he's sure as fuck not going to finish that sentence.

Clint nudges Wanda then, who says, "I want to try it one word at a time. Dr. Gueye thinks it might not be possible. We might have to enact the programming to undo it. But I want to try it my way first."

In fairness, when Wanda had argued for this approach, Dr. Gueye had shrugged and said, "Worth a try. Not like any of this has been done before."

Bucky takes a sip of coffee. He focuses his gaze on Dr. Gueye and asks, "Do you know the things I've done under the programming?"

She meets his gaze evenly and nods, once. He pauses for a moment, but then pushes forward. "And you really think it can be undone. The—the triggers, everything in my head."

"Yes." She doesn't hesitate or flinch before responding. "Not easily, but yes. It can be done."

Natasha bites her cheek. She agrees that they'll get the programming dismantled, one way or another. But she doesn't think that's what Bucky is asking, at least not in whole. He's asking if they can undo what Hydra did, what Hydra turned him into, to the extent that he can live with himself. And that's a different question.

Natasha's committed to making the answer yes. She just thinks it will be a fuck of a lot messier than whatever Wanda has to do to shake Bucky free of the commands and get his feet back under him. 

Bucky's still looking at Dr. Gueye. Slowly, he nods. He turns again and asks Wanda, "When do we start?"

*

Rhodey corners Tony the day before he's setting off to actually see the island, discuss what needs to be done with Sharon. He says, "You wanna tell me what you're not telling me?"

Tony considers acting dumb for half a second. Then he just gives Rhodey a look and asks, "If I wanted to, don't you think I would have by now?"

Rhodey sighs, but he also walks under his own power—sure, with some help from the braces, but it's Rhodey doing the real work—to the bar and pours himself a finger of Scotch. Only then does he say, "You're going to break the Accords."

Tony decides he wants a drink too, and joins Rhodey. He takes out a tumbler and pours himself a whiskey. "Not exactly. Or, well, it depends on how you read them."

Rhodey raises an eyebrow and takes a sip. Tony turns his glass around on the table, staring at the amber liquid. "I'm creating a safe haven. That's all."

"That's all," Rhodey says flatly.

Tony doesn't rise to the bait. After a moment, Rhodey asks, "Have you changed your mind?"

Tony shakes his head. "Not about oversight, or, at least, the need for accountability, no. But, I just, I think Natasha _might_ have had a point about us going at this the wrong way."

If it were anyone else, Tony's pretty sure they would make a crack about the Great Tony Stark admitting he might be wrong, or that someone else might be right. Rhodey just drums his fingers against the bar top and says, "So, what, exactly? You make a play for time, figure out an alternate solution? There are a hundred and seventeen countries looking to enforce those Accords, Tony."

"Level with me: how many of them are going to hold out when there's an actual disaster happening?"

"Not many," Rhodey agrees. "But a few of them. Some of the more corrupt ones or just the ones who are understandably wary of Western interference."

"I know. And I know I have to find a way to get Steve to come to the table, at least in part."

"But?" Rhodey prompts.

Tony just meets his eyes, hoping it will be enough. Rhodey knows him, after all, knows how the team has given him purpose and focus and sometimes even managed to stop the frenetic pace of his brain. Rhodey knows all too well that Tony can't just walk away from them.

Rhodey finishes his drink. "Why can't you ever decide these things _before_ international regulatory forces are involved?"

Tony smiles sardonically. "You know what they say, better late than never."

Rhodey rolls his eyes. "I can't help you with this, you know that."

"I know," Tony says softly. "And I wouldn't blame you if you felt you had to report me."

It'd tear out a part of him Tony isn't certain he can afford to lose, but one of the things that has always drawn Tony to Rhodey is the other man's sense of duty, his willingness to give himself to something larger. For all the times he's been hurt by Rhodey, he's hurt Rhodey, they've frustrated each other and said things they shouldn't have, he's never wanted to _change_ Rhodey, and he still doesn't now.

Rhodey gives a huff of laughter. "Pretty sure that ship has sailed right off the edge of the world, Tony."

Tony isn't sure how to respond to that, so he takes a sip. Rhodey tilts his head. "Just promise me you'll get a compromise. Something everyone can live with."

Tony glances up at him. "Or die trying."

*

A day later, Steve is sitting in the corridor outside Bucky's rooms where Bucky and Wanda are trying some basic exercises, getting him accustomed to letting her inside his mind. He's curled up on himself, looking like nothing more than an overgrown sixteen year old, far from home. Natasha nudges Clint with her hip. He nudges right back, and the two of them go a sit on either side of Steve without having to discuss it.

Steve shifts a little, but he doesn't say anything, not even "I'm all right," or any other sort of protestation Natasha expects. She leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder. When the silence has settled into an easy, comfortable one, it's only then that Steve says, "I stayed on his couch last night. Couldn't seem to go further and he didn't seem to mind, so I just stayed. He had nightmares last night. One after the other after the other. But he never got up, never just decided to stay awake. It was like…like achieving what was 'supposed' to be doing was more important than what would make things better for him."

"Probably is, right now," Clint says, his tone flat but not cruel, just matter-of-fact.

Steve tucks his knees even closer to his chest, resting his chin on them. Clint looks past him to meet Natasha's gaze. She holds back a sigh and nods. Clint says, "Tash was a bit like that, at first. Different, but not so different."

Steve takes a shaky breath. "Yeah?"

"She hates the texture of chicken. Only, I didn't know that for years, because if it was the meal being served in the commissary, she just ate it. Little things. The material SHIELD used to make their BDUs out of gave her hives, but she just found a way to get allergy meds without medical knowing." Clint shrugs.

Natasha narrows her eyes at him, and he shakes his head. So she's the one to say, "I gave a couple of the deprogrammers and some of my superiors blowjobs. Sometimes had sex with them. In retrospect, possibly I should have realized when Coulson found out and fired everyone he thought might have taken advantage that there was a subset of SHIELD that had a different agenda, but I—it was something we did. Those of us trained by the Red Room."

She wrinkles her nose. "It was—use what you have to get what you need, and live through everything else. Weapons need maintenance, but they don't want anything. I _wanted_ to not feel like puking after a meal because the texture was so wrong, I _wanted_ to not itch like crazy day in and day out, I _wanted _to not be fucked by anyone, but I didn't _need_ any of those things, and I didn't even really understand that want was a thing."__

__Steve asks, "And now?"_ _

__She raises an eyebrow. "You think I can't speak up for myself just fine?"_ _

__"Can, sure. Do?" Steve shrugs, his whole body moving with the motion._ _

__Natasha looks over at Clint, who tilts his head to the side and says, "He's not going to be the man you remember, Cap. Not ever. You're not the guy he remembers, or, well, the pieces of memory he's got, it's not of this you. Things scar. We all learn to live with the new skin."_ _

__Steve closes his eyes. "I just want him—"_ _

__"Happy?" Clint guesses._ _

__"Healthy?" Natasha says._ _

__"Whole?" Clint tries._ _

__"Any of those," Steve says. "All of them. Content. Safe."_ _

__Natasha thinks Steve knows how impossible some of these desires are. She doesn't need to tell him. Instead, she says, "Then start small."_ _

__"I'll start miniscule, if I have to, I just—"_ _

__"See if he'll go on a walk with you after one of the nightmares. Make him some coffee to let him know it's all right to sleep or not sleep when he wants to." Clint says, and for a moment Natasha's back in that second when he saw how puffy her lips were their second week of actually working together and jokingly asked, 'who's the lucky person?'_ _

__She's in that second when she hadn't understood how to answer, had thought he was jealous, hadn’t wanted to upset her ticket in, had said, 'he's nothing, you don't have to worry, we can—.'_ _

__She's in that second when his eyes had gone dark and flat and terrifying and she was sure she'd lost everything, but instead he'd gotten them ice cream from the commissary and marched them up to Coulson's office and the two men had spent an hour detailing all the reasons why someone was going to lose their private parts if they so much as looked at her with interest again._ _

__She blinks and Clint is looking at her, knowledge and uncertainty warring in his expression. She smiles at him. "Maybe watch a movie. Something silly and fun. Or something with puppies rolling around. Whatever."_ _

__"Be there," they both say at the same time. It's Clint's turn to smile, and he says, "But let him have his own space."_ _

__"And if I get it wrong?" Steve asks._ _

__"Eh," Natasha says, "I'll knock you around a bit and then send you back in to do better next time."_ _

__It takes a couple of seconds, but Steve laughs. His body is still tense and he's not moving from the wall, but when Clint and Natasha crowd in a bit closer, he doesn't shake them off, either._ _

____

*

Bucky remembers the pain of the wipes. It's not something conscious, it's embedded, like rusty nails, deep in his nervous system. When, after their third session, Wanda pulls free—he feels that too, the nail coming out, snagging flesh as it works its way out—and says, "I'm hurting you," sounding hurt herself, uncertain, he finds himself shaking his head.

Wanda says, "I am, I can _feel_ it."

Bucky has killed women, killed children, killed girls like her. It feels like a type of penance to say, "No. My fear is hurting me."

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. She doesn't argue, instead saying, "We're both scared. You're scared of…probably everything. I'm scared of what I can do at times, of not helping, of harming even as I help. I can't not be scared, I know that, now. I've tried it and I just…I can't. You probably can't either. But I think being scared together might make things less scary, somehow."

Bucky rubs at the spot where he's used to finding casing and wires. It had taken three surgeries for the Wakandan doctors to clean out much of the hardware that had been wired into his system with the medical equivalent of brute force. He's so used to the underlying pain that it shouldn't be strange, but the difference in pain is noticeable. It's both better—the interference of mechanics that aren't supposed to be there no longer a problem—and worse: not quite healed in the way it was before.

Steve tells him they're working on new tech to replace the old. Something about that makes Bucky's stomach twist tight and hard, but he's kept quiet about it. He'll do what Steve wants him to.

Wanda is still watching him, chin tucked on her knees. He's pretty sure he's failing her, but he's not certain how not to. She frowns and asks, "Can I try something?"

He blinks. He would have said they'd agreed she could try anything she wants. Since, to his way of seeing things, he's already said yes he just extends his hand, palm open. They've learned in their three sessions that they can connect without physical touch, but it's infinitely more wearing on both of them.

She smiles at him with all her teeth, but it's not threatening. It's…young, Bucky thinks. She threads her fingers through his, cups her other hand over his knuckles, her touch warm and light. She says, "Try and find an old memory of Steve, from before the war. A good one."

It's not easy, but it's not hard, either, not the way Bucky keeps expecting it to be. They're fourteen, maybe fifteen. Sarah's still alive, and the two of them are still in school for part of the day. Bucky's got a job bagging groceries and he gives all the money to his parents, but they always find a way to slip a few pennies back to him.

For once Steve is feeling all right. It's summer, but not the deep of it yet, when everything will get slow and dizzy and miserable with the heat. No, it's just warm for now, and the two of them have the afternoon free, and Bucky's got a whole nickel to his name. It's basically a banner day.

Steve's using the last of the napkins he squirreled away from the diner where Sarah picks up shifts sometimes. The owners like Steve—he's always on his best behavior there, not wanting to make trouble for his mom—so they look the other way when he starts scribbling on them. The pencil he's using is down to a nub, Steve can barely keep it between his fingers. Bucky knows what that nickel's going to after all.

Steve must feel Bucky's eyes on his drawing, because his posture gets defensive, curling over the drawing. Bucky's already seen it. It's nothing intimate, just a sketch of the girl who's skipping rope a couple of doorways over. Bucky grins. "It's good, you know that. It's always good."

Steve shakes his head, but he's smiling, the smile he only ever shares with Bucky and Sarah. The smile that says he's actually proud, for just a moment, of who he is. That smile always makes Bucky feel invincible.

It's in that second, remembering the echo of that feeling, that Bucky remembers Wanda is there with him, mostly because she…the best way Bucky can describe it is to say that she seems to pull at the edges of it, expand it, tuck it into dark corners that Bucky keeps carefully hidden. The sensation is nothing like a nail, it's more of a solid squeeze to the shoulder, a gesture of faith and solidarity done solely with a mind.

Bucky opens his eyes—he doesn't remember closing them—and stares at her. She's still smiling, only now it's richer, more layered, and Bucky realizes that some of the memory is infused in her smile. She says, "Just one more thing."

That "thing" is evidently a memory of her own. She's young, a baby, four, five at most. A boy is with her, and they match, if not in looks, then in spirit. They're chasing a cat, the cat cleverly keeping itself hidden from their desire to cuddle it within an inch of its life. The boy is laughing, and Wanda is running. In the background, the voice of a parent scolds about chasing the cat, but it is half-hearted, more amused than upset. The air is redolent of meat and spices, a meal for the family cooking its way to completion. Wanda manages to get a hand on the cat before it slips away, her fingers touching the soft tufts of fur. 

Bucky cannot do what she has done, cannot make that memory larger. Instead he learns from it what he can, tries to understand what she is giving him: a part of her, a good part, something simple and innocent. She is the one to open her eyes this time. He leans over, instinct bringing his lips to her forehead. He jerks back, almost pulling his hand from hers, but she holds tight and he does not want to hurt her.

"See," she says, "we both know how to trust and laugh and love. We are both human beneath the fear and the pain."

Bucky opens his mouth to explain that that might not be true anymore. She takes one hand off his and puts it to his mouth. She says, "They put machinery in you, they messed with your mind, they experimented. Maybe, even, they broke you." She shrugs. "I was broken, too. By the deaths of my parents, by my own choices, by losing Pietro. It does not make me a machine. It makes me dangerous and jagged, I suppose. But not less human." She looks at him, all trace of a smile gone, but her eyes filled with compassion. "The same is true of you. Inside, you are as human as any of us. We just have to do like the doctors did, and clean out the rest of the implants."

Bucky's not certain she's right, but he does know this. "What the doctors did would have hurt without drugs." Lots and lots of drugs. So many he knows they were worried he wouldn't wake from them. "You have to be willing to hurt me."

She looks down for a moment, and then up again, nodding once. "But know if you don't heal, it will break me further."

Bucky has to give it to her: she's figured out how to incentivize him.

*

It's Sam who calls Natasha at three fourteen in the morning to say, "You might wanna get down to the landing pad. Something that looks an awful lot like Tony's jet is powering down on it."

Natasha's more grateful than she can say that waking up is an immediate and complete process with her. "Why are _you_ at the landing pad?"

"Couldn't sleep. Shuri and I were on a run."

She should find out what's keeping Sam up, but for the moment she just asks. "You called Steve?"

"I felt you were the better play," Sam tells her.

"Yeah, let's go with that for now. Has Shuri told her brother?"

"She is as we speak."

"Be there in a minute." Natasha throws the phone aside and hastens to get into something that isn't one of the t-shirts she and Clint have been sharing indiscriminately.

"Stark?" Clint asks. Even if she didn't know all his tones, she'd know he's still pissed from the use of Tony's last name.

For this reason, she says, "Stay here. You can deck him later, promise."

Clint smiles crookedly at her. "I'm mostly over it."

She knows he's not lying, precisely. She also knows it's going to take them having a face to face for the last of what is eating at Clint to get it all out of his system. 

"Get some more sleep," she tells him, and then heads out.

It's not far to the landing pad, a few minutes at a jog. Still, by the time she gets there, Tony's standing on the pad and several members of the Wakandan security force have surrounded him. He spots her and says, "Vouch for me, Red. I brought you a god in supplication."

_Thor._ The rush of fulfillment Natasha gets at the idea of almost all of them being in the same place is momentarily disorienting. Also, inappropriate, given that Tony's three seconds away from being taken to a Wakandan holding cell, and his presence puts all of their safety at risk. She doesn't care. He came, and he brought Thor, and that is more than enough. She nods to the officers and says, "I'll take responsibility for him."

To her surprise, they actually back off a little bit. She moves into Tony's space and says, "You came."

"You invited."

She feels her lips twitch. "You might as well tell Thor he can come out. T'Challa's on his way here with Shuri. Sam's probably with them. There's going to need to be a debrief, and then—then we have to talk about Bucky."

His smile is sharp as he asks, "Thor's still asleep, sacked out somewhere near hour twelve. You taking the honor of addressing the ogre in the room, then? Not Steve?"

Natasha cocks her head and considers the taut lines of Tony's body, the way his voice goes tight and hard when saying Steve's name. Slowly, she says, "I'm not going to apologize for him. And he's not going to apologize for protecting Bucky. I know the letter was…not as opaque as it could have been. And I get that the two of you are still on opposite sides of the aisle, or, at least, a few pews away from each other. But he meant for you to call. Not just if you needed us, but if you needed anything at all. He meant that he cared and he was sorry and he knows he screwed up. Which, buying islands aside, is more than you've said."

Tony runs a hand over his face. He says, "He killed my mom," but it's quiet and tired and like an argument he's having with himself.

"Hydra killed your mom," she says, equally quiet. "He was just the weapon they used to do it. And now he has to live with that."

Tony sighs, looking over to the side into the dark of night. "I know. I was…it was kind of emotional, in those first few moments. And he was holding a very large gun."

"I know," Natasha says. She hadn't known about the gun, but it makes sense. But she knows well enough that Tony doesn't always think before he acts, and that this was his _family_ , so really, this part of the struggle she understands completely.

"I figure they're probably working on new tech for him, right? I thought, you know, I could add my two cents."

She smiles. "That's not reparations, you just want to see their tech."

He gives her his best "who, me?" look. She tries to laugh, but everything still feels too raw. "Talk to Steve."

She hears steps behind them and glances over to see that T'Challa, Shuri, and Sam have arrived. Tony says, "In the morning, I think, yeah? For now, let's make sure I don't get kicked out of the country."

Natasha shrugs. "You brought Thor. It's hard to fault a guy who brings us the life of the party."

*

Bucky knows something is off when Clint brings breakfast to Steve's quarters. Bucky has noticed that Clint watches _everything_ , including whether they're all eating enough, so it's not the gift of food that tips him off. It's the fact that Clint comes before eight. Clint is also all about the rest of them getting sleep. Bucky highly suspects he has good reasons to linger in bed in the morning, if the way Natasha and Clint spar is any indication.

The point is: Clint doesn't really appear before eight unless there's some kind of emergency. It's six thirty, though, and Clint is at the door with orange juice, coffee, slices of tapalapa, butter and the local jam that Bucky has considered eating straight from a spoon. He _hasn't._ But he's thought about it.

Bucky lets Clint in to Steve's rooms. Steve is still in bed, sleeping, but Bucky hasn't slept since the second nightmare of the night. Steve had gone for a run with him after that, despite it being nearly one in the morning, and after they'd gotten back had sat around with Bucky until Bucky had herded Steve into bed, Steve protesting the whole way. It had taken Bucky a week or so to figure out that Steve was staying up nights out of solidarity, but now that Bucky knows he's allowed to stay up, he's okay doing it on his own. Sure, it's nice having Steve up with him, but Wakanda is filled with ambient noises that are soothing to Bucky by dint of letting him know he's close to the outdoors, could step out there at any moment. It makes it nearly easy to survive the early morning silences.

Bucky's been curled up on Steve's couch, reading, since he finally got Steve back to bed, and so he hears Clint's quiet knock easily.

Clint sets the breakfast items on the kitchen island and says, "Stark's here."

Bucky's stomach tightens out of fear, uncertainty, and guilt, but he simply nods. "I—I think I could…settle things, if Steve weren't there. Can you—I just need some time."

Clint says, "You are _on_ something if you think I'm letting you in a room with Stark by yourself," as he butters a piece of the bread. "Even if I thought it was a good idea, which I don't, I'm not willing to have Steve looking at me with eyes that tell me I've disappointed America, Truth, and Justice, for the rest of my life."

Bucky sees Clint's point. "It doesn't have to be just us. Just not Steve. Things escalate with him there."

Clint takes a bite of the bread and tilts his head. "Yeah, the two of them are pretty into the pigtail pulling, huh? I kinda thought it would wear off once you showed up again, but I think it's gotten worse."

Bucky blinks at Clint. It's not that he's surprised to have missed something important, exactly. It's more that now that the puzzle piece has slotted into place, it makes everything ten times worse. "I—Were they—I mean." Bucky frowns. "Would they have, you think, if I hadn't, if Steve hadn't had to go look for me?"

Clint starts spreading the jam on one of the pieces of bread. "Not the point."

Bucky's trying to figure out what that means when Clint pushes the bread toward him. "Eat."

Bucky takes the bread. He's not terribly hungry. He yo-yos between being ravenous and nauseated these days, with very little in between. But he's hard pressed to ignore orders, even if he rationally understands he's allowed to disobey. He takes a bite and chews slowly. 

Clint leans against the counter and says, "We all ask 'what if,' it's human, and I know you're concerned that you've left that stage behind, but you haven't. We all ask that, but it doesn't matter. What matters is 'what now' or 'what next?'"

Bucky's shoulders are tight with tension and it makes his entire left side ache, but that's background noise to his frustration. "I'm _trying_ to fix this. To make whatever's next possible."

"And I'm trying to make you see that that's not all on you. That Steve is part of something bigger, even if he doesn't realize it, and that makes you part of something bigger. We're a team. You're not going to talk with Tony alone, because Natasha and Wanda can be there and not escalate things, and maybe we can get a dialogue going. Well, and Thor. You haven't met Thor, but he's a surprisingly good peace keeper when he wants to be."

He hasn't met Thor, but he knows the specs on him. Agardian deity, superhuman, probably strong enough to go head to head with Bucky. His presence is more reassuring than it should be, given that Bucky knows without a question that Natasha and Wanda can take care of themselves. What's more, he's pretty sure Stark, from what he knows of the man, wouldn't try to really hurt them, not like he'd gone at Steve. It still feels wrong to put anyone between Bucky and a guy who recently tried to go through Captain America just for the privilege of killing him.

Bucky's stomach hurts and he tries swallowing the next piece, but before he knows it he's leaning over the sink, bringing everything he just ate back up. Clint says, "Fuck," and turns on the sink, rubbing Bucky's lower back.

When Bucky straightens up, Clint hands him a bottle of fizzy water, and says, "Sorry, that one was on me. Should have asked if you were hungry."

Bucky rinses his mouth out, and then takes a few sips, letting the carbonation settle his stomach. "I knew I didn't have to listen."

"Yeah, well, there's knowing and then there's knowing."

Bucky takes another sip, mostly so he doesn't have to say anything. Softly, Clint says, "Between all of us, this is fixable. But we're going to have to trust and rely on each other."

Bucky's not even sure he knows what that means. He holds the bottle to his forehead, the cold soothing. He takes a breath and asks, "Is Talia with him now?"

"Yeah," Clint says.

"Okay." Bucky sets the bottle down. "Let's go."

*

Tony's not sure what he's expecting from T'Challa, but it's not a handshake and a casual welcome, like there are no secrets between them. Then again, Tony supposes there aren't, at least not any that matter. Tony introduces Thor who immediately has questions about the warrior culture that created the Black Panther. For once, Tony is very glad to let someone else do the talking.

Natasha's at his side, her hand brushing against his now and then, even as she adds her own questions to Thor's, evidently emboldened by Thor beginning the conversation. The woman, Shuri, often answers instead of her brother, and Tony enjoys the way she tells the stories, the history she's been raised with, that which she now carries on. 

They come to an atrium-type area with plenty of seating, and Wanda's there. She mouths, "hi," because Shuri is speaking, and Wanda's far too polite to interrupt. Thor walks over and picks her up in a hug which makes her laugh a little. Tony's chest feels too tight, all of a sudden, like _now_ is the moment he's just figuring out what he has to lose. 

Tony's been fighting not to lose this since New York. Sure, Wanda's a new component, but it doesn't change anything. Tony's pretty sure he's mostly been losing.

He finds himself seated next to Natasha. Thor is still chatting with Sam, T'Challa, and Shuri, but Wanda's placed herself on the arm of the seat Natasha and Tony are occupying. She says, "I've been working with Bucky, on his triggers. It's slow work, but there's progress."

Tony nods. "I'm not sure I'm grasping the context for this."

"Clint is fetching him," Natasha says. "We think the two of you should chat before you and Steve try to figure your shit out."

While Tony is trying to come up with a reasonable response for that pronouncement, Wanda adds, "And I'm trying to make it clear that he's working on not being a danger to anyone."

Tony closes his eyes and opens them again quickly when all he sees is his mom, pleading. He still has a nightmare about it once every few nights. Pepper's not around to calm him down, get him to go back to sleep, so he spends those nights in the workshop, or sometimes on a treadmill, whatever will exhaust him enough to sleep through the next night.

Despite this, Tony knows it's the best approach to the situation. James Barnes might have killed Tony's parents, or, at least, the shell of his body performed the act, but there's not history between them, not really. Tony doesn't feel betrayed by Barnes, not the way he instinctually feels with regard to Steve. Getting one problem out of the way before moving onto the bigger one is a good plan.

Tony doesn't have to like it, though. "That should go well."

Natasha says, "Everything is going to be fine." She says it like an order, like a threat.

Tony knows he should have caught on a while ago, probably would have, if he hadn't been distracted by his own desperation, but he's starting to get that he's not the only one who's desperate here. He's just not sure he knows how to understand a Natasha who's anything but fully in control of the situation. Because it's something he can give her, he says, "Well then. If you say so, Tsarina."

She rolls her eyes, but he feels her posture loosen just a bit. He allows himself to enjoy the victory for the few moments he's got.

*

It's warm in the atrium, Bucky knows it is, but he wants to wrap his arm around himself anyway, ward off cold that's entirely in his mind. Clint says, "You've got this."

Stark is standing; he stood when Bucky walked in and now they're just watching each other. Bucky wants to say _I'm sorry,_ wants to say, _you have his eyes,_ wants to bare his throat or do anything that will make this better, except there isn't anything. 

In the end, it's Stark who speaks first. "So, uh, sorry I tried to kill you, I guess."

Bucky blinks, because despite the structure of the apology, it sounds sincere. "Sorry I—" He shakes his head, grimacing. "Sorry."

Stark's eyes flicker to the wrappings over Bucky's left shoulder. Bucky fights the urge to turn away. Aside from the fact that it would be useless, it seems like something he can give Stark, at least, to stand there and let the man look.

Stark moves in, then, and it really is all Bucky can do not to jerk back when Stark's focus tightens in on the area just above the wrapping, where much of the hardware had to be removed. Bucky forces himself to breathe evenly. Stark says, "I'm not sorry I blasted your arm off, seeing as how you were trying to rip my power source out at the time, but it looks like you needed someone to go in there and clean out whatever the hell they'd put in over time. Have they started fitting you for new prostheses?"

Bucky frowns slightly at Stark, and then at Talia, who rolls her eyes and comes over. She pushes herself between Stark and Bucky and says, "Hey, spaz."

Stark looks at her like he's not sure where she's come from. Then he shakes his head a bit. "Yeah. Right." He peers around her at Bucky. "Where were we?"

Bucky shrugs. Frankly, he hasn't got a fucking clue. Stark runs a hand over his face. When he speaks again, he's not looking at Bucky. He's not really looking at anything at all. "You—you really remember them?"

Bucky swallows back bile and nods.

Stark inhales through his nose and turns his head to face Bucky. "You tried to kill Steve, didn't you? When they—when he was your mission."

_And Talia,_ Bucky almost says, except he doesn't think Stark has any context for that comment. Instead he answers, "Yes."

"Jesus." Stark mutters it so quietly, Bucky's not even sure he's meant to hear. 

Talia takes his face in her hands. "Tony. I've lied to you and given you surprise injections and walked away from you when you thought I had your back and you've forgiven me."

Stark's eyes widen, like he thinks Talia doesn't keep track of the things she does, of every tiny transgression, like he thinks she doesn't count her sins every morning and every night. Bucky knows better.

Stark says, "You've also had my back when I've needed it."

"He will too. You have to give him the chance to."

There's a moment where everything seems tense and then Stark drops his forehead, looking as if someone has cut his strings. Talia stands her ground, lets him lean against her. She says, "Hey, hey."

Bucky has no idea how much time has passed when Stark looks up at him and says, "Well. You willing to call a do-over on this?"

Bucky isn't. He owes Stark, will probably always owe him. Instead of lying, he just offers his hand. "Bucky. So they tell me."

Stark's handshake is firm and warm and feels like trouble, the kind Bucky used to love getting into.

*

Bucky says, "You didn't come here for me."

Tony wants a drink. He's uncomfortably aware that he probably would have liked this guy from the start if the start hadn't involved brainwashing and torture and international terrorist organizations and his _mom_ being killed. Even the scant parts that seem to be left of Bucky are straightforward, and Natasha seemed more bothered by Tony getting sidetracked over the hardware than Bucky had.

"I came for my team," Tony tells him, and it's not a lie. All things considered, he thinks that might be progress.

Bucky looks at Natasha, who rolls her eyes—Tony doesn't even have to see it, he can _feel_ it—but just nods, not calling Tony on what he hasn't said. Tony can't say if that's because Bucky doesn't know, or because the guy's been trained to keep his thoughts, and everything else, to himself.

Tony does a quick glance to find that, yeah, Clint's already sneaked out. Sam is holding a coffee cup and chatting with the next in line to the Wakandan throne, who's evidently his girlfriend, if the way they've got their knees touching is any indication. Clint's pissed. Tony doesn't know Sam well enough to determine his state of mind, but he feels pretty confident that they're going to have to have words one way or another.

He's not sure how to approach that. He's not _sorry,_ exactly. He isn't wrong to believe there needs to be some sort of governing council, or, at the very least, some way to answer for unintended, but nonetheless harmful actions. He's willing to acknowledge, though, that he wishes he'd played things differently.

He's _never_ telling Natasha that. Ever.

He catches sight of Wanda, who's watching them with ill-concealed hope on her face, and suddenly Tony's exhausted, beyond that, even. He'd stumble if he weren't so used to covering that feeling. Bucky must see something, though, because his eyes narrow and he asks, "You want some coffee?"

Tony glances back over at him. Bucky says, "The stuff here is really good."

He says it like a guy who's made certain that's true, like a guy who can never trust his own opinions. It makes Tony's stomach hurt in a way he's not interested in exploring. Instead he says, "Can I get a pint? Or two?"

Bucky blinks. "I know where the mugs are."

"It's a start," Tony tells him.

*

While Bucky's helping Tony pull his brain back together with the help of magic beans, Natasha slips out. She checks to make sure that Clint's where she thinks he is: calming himself down at the range. He is. He'd been mostly fine until he'd actually _seen_ Tony, when everything he'd been bottling up and pushing down bubbled back up. She'd seen it in the set of his shoulders when he'd turned and fled.

Having ascertained Clint's whereabouts, she makes her way to Steve's quarters. She's not surprised to find Steve awake, standing at his breakfast bar, staring into a glass of water like it might speak to him with the wisdom of the ages.

He glances up at her and asks, "Where's Bucky?"

"In the atrium," she says. "Making nice with Tony."

Steve's body tenses, but he doesn't immediately run out or snap at her. Instead he frowns. "Yeah, I kinda…" He shakes his head. "Sound crazy if I say I woke up with a feeling he'd shown up?"

"No crazier than the rest of our lives."

Steve nods at that, taking a sip of the water. "You'd have mentioned by now if either of them had killed each other, right?"

Natasha knows he doesn't mean it personally, isn't suggesting she'd _ever_ let that happen. Still, she doesn't work too hard at softening her, "It went pretty well, actually. All things considered."

Steve _can_ be oblivious, but he's mostly not, and Natasha's not sure there's ever been a moment when he couldn't read her decently when she was allowing him to. He raises an eyebrow at the tone, but then seems to concede that her ire is earned. Softly he asks, "What do I do?"

"Above my paygrade, Rogers," she tells him.

"As my friend, Nat."

She gives him a look that she is certain conveys the intensity of her desire to tell him to go fuck himself and his earnestness fetish, but he doesn't blink. So she asks, "What you want to do?"

"Time travel," Steve says, still earnest, if also dryly aware of the impossibility of the desire.

"Which is another way of saying that you want what you had with him back."

"When—In Siberia, he said." Steve grimaces. "He said I was his friend. In past tense, he said it like it was no longer true. And I realized I hadn't noticed."

"Steve—"

"No, I mean, he was my team and I depended on him, but we were always coming at things from different angles and he _frustrated_ me and we were maybe family, but friends? Except…except we were, weren't we?"

"Like Bucky never frustrated you growing up?"

Steve rubs a hand over his face.

"Besides, you're still friends," Natasha says. He looks at her like she's missing part of the plot, but she shakes her head. "You are. Tony likes to talk, it means he says stupid shit a lot, and ten times more often when he's angry. Just because he ran his mouth doesn't mean anything. You're friends. The both of you just have to remember that's what you want."

Steve finishes off the glass of water. Softly, he repeats, "What do I _do_ , Nat?"

She rolls her eyes, because seriously, she should not be the one telling anyone this, but, "You do what you do when you have a fight with a friend and you want to make up. You tell them you're sorry. You accept their apology. You treat them like their feelings matter. You find a way to compromise. It's not rocket science."

"No, rocket science and we'd be okay, Tony could figure it out."

Natasha laughs in acknowledgement. "When you're sketching, and you mess up a line, do you always throw it out? Or do you find a way to make the mistake work in the drawing, or let it show you a new way to complete things?"

Steve stills for a moment, then nods and pushes away from the island. Natasha just manages to realize he's going to hug her before she's being pulled in. She lets herself fit into the space he's made for her. "You can do this, Steve."

He doesn't agree, but he doesn't disagree, either, and these days, Natasha tries to read hope into her teammates' silences.

*

When Natasha returns, she's got Steve with her. He looks…it takes Tony several minutes to figure out that the word he's looking for is "small." It's never fit before and it feels wrong that it does now, but there's no denying that it does. It's as if ninety-five pound Steve Rogers has somehow managed to take over the whole of two hundred-something pound Steve Rogers. Tony's shields and walls and defenses are already cracked and shambled and a hodge podge of materials he can't seem to fix. He doesn't even want to deflect, he just wants to _run._

Instead he says, "So, uh. Got your letter."

"Writing's not my strongest, um." Steve shakes his head, then. "Sorry. I'm sorry. For the letter, for leaving you there, for not finding a better way to—"

Tony doesn't even feel himself move, but suddenly he's in Steve's space, his hands on Steve's chest and he's shaking his head. "Nobody's best few weeks, Cap."

Steve looks down at his chest and Tony goes to move his hands, aware he hasn't been invited, hasn't given Steve the chance to even say this is okay, but then Steve's hands are over his, pressing Tony's more solidly into Steve's chest. Steve's still looking down, and he says, "It's good that you're here."

Steve is solid, so perfectly centered and grounded, and Tony's suddenly aware of how intensely lost he's felt, even with Thor there, how at sea. Things skip in his mind the way they sometimes do when he's been focusing too hard and he finally lets go. What comes out of his mouth is, "I think I can fix your pet-cyborg's arm."

Tony freezes then, because for all the ways he tries to keep people from noticing, he does actually have a sense of tact. He just forgets to use it when he's nervous, or, you know, terrified. Steve doesn't let go, though. He says, "His name is Bucky, and Natasha says you two already talked, so I'm hoping that got discussed."

"I mostly just ogled the remaining tech, if we're being honest. Then he gave me coffee. So I guess that's kind of like me saying, 'hey, I can help with that,' and him saying 'not without the proper mental aids, asshole.'"

"I think sleep might be more in line with what you need than coffee." Steve's looking at Tony's face now, and Tony's been avoiding mirrors, but he can imagine what Steve's seeing.

Tony fidgets then. He doesn't want to sleep. He hasn't wanted to sleep since Pepper left. The only time sleeping's been useful has been when he and Thor have watched Mythbusters well into the night and Tony's fallen asleep with his head on Thor's lap.

Wanda pulls up Steve's side and tilts her head. She asks, "Your place, or the one we've got for him?"

"His," Steve says. 

"What?" Tony asks. He's missed something.

Steve releases his hands and Tony forces them to drop to his side. But then Wanda is herding him out of the atrium, saying, "You told us you'd come. We took you at your word."

Steve's still at his side, and when Tony glances over his shoulder, Thor, Bucky, and Natasha are trailing behind them. It's about a five minute walk down a set of hallways to a room which has a key sitting in the lock. Tony blinks at it. "Quaint."

Wanda opens the door and takes the key, handing it to Tony. "These rooms are yours for as long as you stay."

He looks around and it _clicks_. "You really were waiting."

"You really are incredibly thick," Natasha tells him, and gently shoves him in the direction of a door, which opens to reveal a bedroom.

"Isn't it like eight in the morning here, or something?" Tony asks, even as he's pushed into sitting on the bed, Thor kneeling to take his shoes off.

"Seven twenty three," Bucky says, like it actually matters. Tony glances over at him. 

Bucky shrugs. "You gotta let Steve get his mother hen out."

Tony snorts. "This is magical." He looks at Steve. "Magical."

"Mmhm," Steve says, toeing off his own shoes and rolling onto the bed, pulling Tony down next to him. Wanda climbs in on the other side of Tony, with Natasha curling in behind her. Bucky lines himself up against Steve's back and Thor pulls up a chair. 

Wanda makes a noise and somehow creates extra space to lie down so that Thor can lie down next to Natasha. She says, "Sleep, or I'm pretty sure I can make you."

Tony mostly trusts Wanda, really, but aside from it not being necessary, he doesn't exactly want to find out, so he closes his eyes and takes a breath and, as it turns out, sleep is right there, waiting for him.

*

When Tony wakes, the others are gone. Well, Clint is sitting up, back against the headboard, bare feet crossed in front of him and reading something on technology Tony did not make. Tony stretches to make it obvious that he's awake, even though he suspects Clint knew before Tony did.

Tony asks, "You're really that pissed, that you're using substandard tech—"

"It's Wakandan," Clint interrupts. "So possibly superior."

"Okay, yeah, that pissed," Tony says under his breath, sitting up.

Clint puts the pad aside and looks at Tony, eyes level and not giving away much. But he says, "We're _family,_ Tony," and like one of his fucking arrows, it hits exactly where it's meant to.

Tony knows his automatic reaction to injuries: hide the pain, lash out at the cause. It's kept him fucking _alive_ , so he can't say he regrets it, but over the years, it's definitely become more problematic, as it isn't always helpful. For example, if he weren't so prone to instinct in these instances, his first response might not have been, "Oh yeah, Barton? Something you know so much about?"

Clint's fists tighten and then he forces them open, flexing the fingers nearly to concavity. Tony watches and says, "Shit. That—shit. I shouldn't have said that."

Clint stays still, the whole line of his body like his damn bow when drawn. He swallows and says, "Phil used to say it wasn't so much about who pushed you out into this world as about who took you in."

Tony sighs. "That…doesn't sound like Agent at all."

Clint glances over at him. "Sounds like his mom, which is who he was quoting. She died a few years after SHIELD recruited me, but she was this sturdy, Midwestern-bred lady who took absolutely no fucking prisoners and played a really mean game of backgammon."

"Backgammon?"

Clint shrugs. "Focus."

"I—"

"You took us in, Tony. All of us. And then you let them put a fucking collar on Wanda, like a _slave _. You looked Tasha in the eye and told her she was nothing better than the product of abuse and programming."__

__Tony breathes through his nose and forces down the worst of his desire to say something cutting, to walk out on this conversation. He might not know a hell of a lot more about family than Clint does, really, but he knows if you want to keep it, you have to make it past the fights. "You distracted me so Wanda could dump cars on my head. And you never even asked for my take on it. Never. Just assumed I was—I don't even know. That I didn't care? That I'm always wrong? What?"_ _

__"Tony, you could have had the righteous truth of fucking Mother Teresa backing your position up, and I wouldn't have helped you corner Steve and lock him away."_ _

__"Right," Tony says quietly, swallowing. It's not like he was unaware that when it came to him and Steve, Steve was always the one who would—_ _

__"Jesus, Tony, you're thinking loudly enough they probably hear you in the next room. I wouldn't help Steve corner you and lock you up either. Nobody's putting anybody in my family in a prison. And if I have to choose sides to make sure that everyone is safe and free, then yeah, you bet your ass I'm going to. It's got fuckall to do with who I like better."_ _

__Still speaking quietly, feeling exhausted despite having just woken up, Tony tells him, "I really didn't think."_ _

__Clint opens his mouth, but Tony shakes his head, and miraculously, Clint closes his mouth, settles in to listen. Tony isn't even sure where to start, so he starts with what feels the most pressing, the thing that still feels like fucking shrapnel in his heart, far worse than the actual scar tissue that still remains. "I thought about the funerals after New York, the cemeteries that were created purely to have room for the victims. About the kids that didn't get off of Sokovia. About the body count. And I just wanted it to stop. I wanted—I wanted the impossible, I _needed_ it, and I forgot that there are no easy answers, there's no immediate fix to a problem, I just saw a solution."_ _

__Tony feels shaky, the kind of trembles he remembers having after Afghanistan when everything was too bright and too loud and too crowded and not enough all at once. He stutters, "If I'd thought, if I had, you're right, I would have known how things would end, or at least had some pretty good ideas. But I _didn't._ "_ _

__Clint frowns, clearly considering this. Tony's about driven to say something more when Clint nods once and says, "Yeah, okay."_ _

__Tony shakes his head, more out of confusion than a denial of anything. "Okay?"_ _

__Clint says, "Not really anyone's best moment, if we're being honest. You hungry?"_ _

__Clint's getting off the bed and Tony says, "What?"_ _

__"Hungry. You know, in need of sustenance—"_ _

__"Clint—"_ _

__Clint reaches out and _tousles Tony's hair _like the total asshole that he is. "Tasha's been making these mean smoothies with some of the local fruit. You'll love it."___ _

____Tony reaches out and catches Clint by his wrist. He expects Clint to struggle, but Clint doesn't, just stands there, watching Tony, expression calm, patient. Tony takes a breath and says, "Yeah. Yeah, a smoothie sounds good."_ _ _ _

______ _ _

*

Tony's working on orienting himself within the royal residence when Steve finds him. Steve walks next to him for a few moments, both of them being silent before Tony asks, "Loyal sidekick got better things to be doing?"

"Bucky's working with Wanda," Steve says quietly. "They're trying to remove the triggers."

"That's—how's that going?"

Steve frowns. "I'm not sure. Both of them are always so tired and…pained, I guess, after each session, I never want to ask."

Tony makes a note to ask Natasha. She'll know, even if she doesn't want to. Then he switches the subject. "Sharon says hello."

Steve blinks. "Right, she—you know where she is."

"Island slightly west of Tonga. Currently unnamed, but if you have any suggestions, we're passing a hat. Sharon is campaigning for Middle of Nowhere, which I haven't completely ruled out."

Steve says, "Howl's Moving Island."

"I—what?"

"It's from a book. Wanda and I have been reading them, there's a—"

"I know about Diana Wynne Jones," Tony says. "I just don't really expect references to young adult fantasy from the eighties to be the first thing that comes out of your mouth."

Steve shrugs. "It's a good book. And a good name for an island."

It kind of _is_ a good name, even if the island doesn't move. Tony keeps that thought to himself, though. Instead he tells Steve, "She's safe. Sharon. She's setting up the island for us."

"You were that certain of us?" Steve asks.

Tony's still not fucking certain something's not going to go pear-shaped and he's not going to end up living out his days as a recluse in the South Pacific. "Well, it is a tropical island, Cap. Pretty hard to pass up."

Steve speeds up slightly to get in front of Tony, and then stops. He doesn't touch Tony, doesn't even fully block his way. Tony can flee if he wants to. Steve says, "I like warmth."

"Yeah, the whole polar century thing probably—"

"That's not why I'm going to go to your island."

"Our island. The team's. It's—"

"Tony." Steve's hands are restless at his sides, but he doesn't reach out, doesn't touch Tony.

"I wasn't sure at all," Tony says, not even realizing he's going to say it, but he's buzzing with the need to fight or fly, adrenaline soaring for no reason except that Steve is here, and Tony's body has evidently decided it just plain doesn't know what to do with the other man.

"I know," Steve says. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't find another way to work things out with you, that I made you feel like we might not come if you offered."

"Steve—"

Steve shakes his head like he knows what Tony's going to say. _Tony_ doesn’t even know what Tony is going to say, but he responds to the silent command, going quiet. Steve smiles a little. "Thank you for picking somewhere warm."

Tony fidgets. "I like warm, non-desert-y places, too."

Steve smiles more broadly and just says, "Thank you," again.

*

Most of the sessions with Wanda are exhausting and end with Bucky a little nauseated and extremely cold, but they're not painful, not physically. A lot of them don't seem to really do much, other than unearth memories of Bucky's family, or girls he was sweet on, or Steve. He's not complaining. He'd take the pain of the wipes a million times over if that would give him back these moments. But it makes him feel like he's doing something wrong.

So far, they think they've managed to unravel _one_ of the words, "seventeen." It took them four sessions, each over two hours, and neither of them is entirely sure exactly where in all of that the programming actually released. Bucky thinks it was when they managed to hit his actual memories of the programming. Wanda thinks it's that they uncovered the purpose of that choice of words. 

Either way, while it does disrupt the phrasing sequence, Bucky's refusing to see if that overcomes the triggering before they've managed at least three more, and he'd prefer five. Nobody's pressed him on the issue, so he suspects they agree. Alternately, they're humoring him. 

They're allowing him the choice, though, and that's…more than Bucky expected. It's more than he knows how to handle if he starts thinking about it too hard, so he just doesn't allow himself to think. That behavior he's got down pat.

Someone always sits in on the sessions. He'd assumed it was because they were worried he might hurt Wanda, until he had offered to be restrained for the sessions. Wanda had blinked and said slowly, "I asked them to come in case I—I'm afraid I might go too far. Might do something wrong."

Bucky's answer to that had been, "Oh."

It had made her smile, a soft, delicately surprised look that stopped Bucky from saying anything else, even, "It's all right if you do."

Sam is sitting in with them today. Sam, Clint, and Natasha are the regular three, although Shuri, T'Challa, and Scott will pitch in if need be. Nobody will let Steve help. There have been more than a few fights about it.

Since unlocking "seventeen," they've been working on "rusted." Unlike "seventeen," which had some possible starting places—Bucky's seventeenth year, dates with the seventeenth in them, that sort of thing—it's hard to imagine how this one was imprinted, what the programming is tangled up with. As such, they've been working as linearly as possible, trying to shine a light on memories as early as a person with an average memory would be able to recall, and moving forward from there.

Bucky's figured out a whole slew of things he hated eating as a kid, remembered twenty-three different fights he pulled Steve out of, recalled his love of games with numbers in them, and spent two days feeling like a total shit for the time he stole his sister's only doll and gave it to some girl in his third grade class. 

Steve hadn't been able to stop laughing when Bucky'd admitted this last. He said, "Reeling 'em in in diapers. James Buchanan Barnes, ladies and gents."

Today his mind is skipping. He can't seem to focus on much of anything except the job he'd landed at a machining factory. The war was just getting started over in Europe and at that time it had seemed like good fortune, even if it made Steve mad as hornet trapped in a glass. Britain needed things that factories made and sure, the work was boring and grueling and not always exactly safe, but it had paid sixty-four cents an hour, which was considerably more than anything Bucky had ever managed to garner through odd jobs or loading gigs at the docks.

The job allowed him to buy Steve a blanket from the second-hand shop, a good one, for when they inevitably missed a heat payment in the winter. And he'd bought himself a hat, a gray Stetson that Steve had laughed at, the way he laughed at all Bucky's fancy clothes. Bucky liked the sound of that laugh, sometimes he thought he bought the nice shirts just to hear it.

Steve had said, "Guess it's worthwhile then, coming home smelling of metal and rust."

It's like hitting a wall, only worse. Bucky's hit walls, been thrown into them, had bones broken upon impact, but this is harsher, like getting the wind knocked out of him. Vaguely, he can hear Wanda saying, "I know, I know, hold on," can hear Sam saying, "Shit, shit," but all that matters is the way that word _rust, rusty, rusting, rusted_ slams into him, Steve's voice layered with the voices of others, accented and intent.

Wanda snaps, "Bucky!" and he manages to take a breath to follow her voice, follow the path she's opened between their minds. He feels it when she seems to take the shards the word keeps causing as it knocks around in his head and _pulls._ He's just able to shout, "No!" but she's already doing it.

She makes a choked noise and slips from the chair where she's sitting, onto her knees. Bucky's there with her, on his knees too, holding her up with his arm, saying, "Wanda," into an almost eerie silence, the type that comes in the aftermath of a shot or something equally loud and final.

Sam's there, too, his hand on Wanda's face, and she blinks her eyes open, looking at both of them for a long second before mumbling. "Ow."

Bucky wishes he had two arms. The only way to carry her without is to sling her over his shoulder and he doesn't know if that would hurt her more. He's working his way into a sick panic about it when she asks, "Can I have an aspirin? And a Cherry Coke?"

Sam snorts. "Yeah, I think we can manage that. But we're gonna take you to see the docs first, okay? Just to make sure."

Wanda rolls her eyes with all the put-upon melodrama of someone who would otherwise be in college, and says, "Fine, dad."

Bucky starts to get up, to help them go there, but she's on her feet and pressing his shoulders down before he can manage. His legs are shakier than he realized. She shakes her head. "We'll send Steve or Natasha. You need to rest. That…that was harder than the last."

Quietly, he asks, "You think it's gone?"

She nods, sharp and decisive. "But I also think it's only going to get harder from here on out."

*

Steve and Tony are in the gardens discussing how citizenship on the island will be determined—and limited—when Sam pops his head out and says, "Steve, you might wanna check in on Barnes sooner rather than later."

As far as Tony can tell, Sam sounds calm, but Sam is one of those guys who can seem calm while sinking into quicksand if he thinks someone else needs him to be calm. Basically, Tony can't tell if this just means Bucky needs a hug, or if the man is about to have an aneurysm.

Steve obviously assumes the latter. He's on his feet before Sam has even stopped speaking. Sam calls, "He's in Wanda's rooms."

Tony doesn't actually realize he's following Steve until they're in the halls and it's a little late to just stop walking. It's how he ends up behind Steve as the other man opens the door to Wanda's suite and finds Bucky on his knees, in the center of the living area, his one arm wrapped over his chest. He looks small and frightened. Tony tries to see the man who wrapped a metal hand around his mother's throat, and he just can't.

Steve slides to his knees in front of Bucky and touches a hand to the intact shoulder, gently. Bucky flinches, despite Steve telegraphing every move. Steve says, "Hey."

"I hurt Wanda," Bucky tells Steve in a voice even more wrecked than he looks.

Tony feels a surge of panic in the instant before Steve shakes his head. "Not badly, or Sam would have said."

"She had a headache. Could be something worse. They were taking her to the doctors."

"I trained with Wanda for a year, Buck. She gets headaches when she's overexerted herself."

"She shouldn't—she should just stop. Not, not take it so far."

Every muscle in Steve's body is drawn tight, his misery at the idea apparent. He nods, though, says, "We'll talk with her. She gets to make the decision about what she does same as you do, though, okay?"

Tony's hyper aware of the fact that any given person's understanding of a situation is heavily based on knowledge and the emotion within the moment. That said, he's having a hard time remembering how he thought that the man before him was actively trying to harm the team. When it comes to Steve, though, Tony's never managed neutrality.

Steve looks over at Tony, shaking him out of his thoughts. Tony turns slightly toward the door, an offer, but Steve shakes his head. Given the option of standing awkwardly by the door or taking hold of the situation, Tony chooses the latter, because he's bad with inactivity. 

He approaches the two of them cautiously, glad he's on Bucky's right side. Bucky looks over at Tony with an expression that could be the textbook picture for exhaustion. Tony says, "You look like you have a bit of a headache yourself."

Bucky looks down and Tony's pretty sure he's _thinking_ about whether that is the case or not. It reminds Tony uncomfortably of the point where he got so used to the steady sharp ache of the shrapnel that he had a hard time noticing when a cough was coming on, or something else that caused pain in that region. 

It means, regardless, the other man is in some amount of discomfort, and dealing with that is a task Tony can assign himself, something to do. He looks at Steve and says, "He staying with you?"

Steve nods. Tony says, "All right. Let's get him back there. Where does the food in this place come from? If I think about it hard enough, will it appear?"

Steve rolls his eyes, but there's a hint of amusement in them, and the set of his shoulders has loosened. Tony thinks, _better_ , thinks, more quietly, _I did that._

Tony coaxes Bucky's hand open from the death grip it has on the casing of his other shoulder and wraps the arm over Tony's shoulders. Steve takes the other side, and together they pull Bucky up to his feet. He comes easily enough, and walks of his own power, but the stiff, unsure way he rests his arm on Tony's shoulder makes Tony press in more tightly. He can't bring himself to say, "I've got you," but, well, he's got him.

*

Tony Stark is a fusser. Bucky sorts through several descriptions in his mind and, even aware that he might be missing a few terms, he's pretty sure that's the right word for it.

Once they're at Steve's rooms, Tony all-but herds Steve and Bucky onto the sofa and, no kidding, tucks a throw around their shoulders. Then he heads to the kitchen area with the question, "Got anything in here I can nuke?"

Steve doesn't seem quite as surprised by this behavior, although Bucky supposes that makes sense. Steve and Tony are…friends. Teammates. Bucky has a flash of the way they fought, the way they had thrown everything they had at each other, and isn't sure he knows the right words for what they are. Something that makes him queasy. He forces himself to stop thinking about it.

Steve asks, "Hungry?"

Bucky shakes his head. He's cold, the kind of cold he knows is in his head. It's temperate here, tending toward warm. Steve's hand rubs at his lower back. "Tea, maybe?"

"Tea's good," Tony says before Bucky can agree or disagree. "Cabinet above the stove?"

"Drawer next to it," Steve tells him. "There's a valerian cardamom canister. That one. Don't boil the water, just get it warm."

"Okay then, Captain Tea Time."

Steve huffs, but it's more fond than anything. Bucky watches Tony move around. For a guy who talks with his entire body, who throws himself around like he owns any space through which he passes, when he's focused, his movements are economic, efficient. It's weirdly calming.

Tony rifles through the small pantry just past the sink and pulls out a box. He finds the mugs after some searching. Bucky's halfway to sleep watching him put everything together, listening to the rhythmic mutter of thoughts Tony's only half expressing, and nowhere near loudly enough for Bucky to actually hear.

Then Tony sets down a mug steeped slightly red, and a box of sesame crackers and says, "Your metabolism is probably as crazy ass as his. Eat up."

Bucky doesn't know why it matters to Tony, but he knows he's not in a position to argue. After the first cracker, though, the first sip of the warm, lightly flavored tea, he doesn't really remember why he might have wanted to argue. He says, "Thank you."

Tony's gaze flashes between them and says, "Yeah, well. Whatever."


	11. Cry Out in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets a crack at Bucky's prosthetic. Wanda and Bucky work on another trigger.

Tony's nightmares have long since ceased to have narrative form. Or, if they do, Tony doesn't remember it upon waking. The therapist Pepper had gotten him to see for a while had helped him learn to get his bearings in the aftermath of one, but most of his go-to tricks for that involve being in familiar surroundings.

Unable to figure out where he is or find a fucking light to switch on, Tony spends an indeterminate amount of time on the floor of the rooms they've given him, shaking from imagined cold and fighting to breathe through panic. Eventually he manages to come down, return his heart rate to normal, remember he's safe and Thor's literally next door if Tony needs something. Steve and Bucky are three doors down, Natasha and Clint across the hall, with Wanda in the next set of rooms to the right. Sam's also within spitting distance, if he gets really desperate. Scott Lang is too, but Tony's not entirely certain he's an ally at this stage.

The point is, he's fine. Everything is fine. Completely and totally fine. 

The idea of getting up from the floor seems overwhelming, but the idea of staying by himself in the dark and quiet of these rooms is immeasurably worse, so he hauls himself up and slips out, wondering if anything in the compound is unlocked at this time of night. He just wants to go outside. Once he's warmed up and truly settled, he'll come back to the rooms, make himself a cup of coffee, and get started dealing with the latest set of emails from Sharon and Maria.

He finds a door to the outside easily enough, and it's unlocked. He hopes it doesn't lock from the inside, but worse comes to worst he can call one of the others. Or sleep in the grass. It's warm out, and the sounds of the area are nothing like Afghanistan. There are nocturnal birds calling to each other, water is running somewhere nearby, and there's a breeze.

He walks, only now just realizing that he hasn't put his shoes on. The earth is damp and Tony stands still for a moment, squishing his toes into the softness of it. 

Tony's got no idea how long he's just been standing there when he hears one of the doors open. The Assassin Wonder Twins come out, holding hands and, oh. Huh. He wonders how long that's been going on. He hopes it wasn't a thing before the airport because, well. He just hopes it wasn't.

"You know you have a patio, right?" Natasha asks. Tony takes in how slowly they're moving toward him, thinks about how loudly the door swung open. 

"Wanted to move," Tony says. He might have forgotten about his patio. Then, "Are you tracking me?"

Clint shrugs. "T'Challa was pretty insistent that someone do it. And we're used to being the bad guys."

"He worried I'm gonna steal one of you, or Wakandan technology?"

"Little of column A, little of column B…" Natasha drawls, and he can see her slight smile in the peek of white teeth in the dark.

"For the record, I've never needed to steal anyone else's technology, nor will I ever."

"But we're fair game, huh?" Clint ribs.

Tony faces him. "Well, I _do_ plan on stealing you, as soon as I have somewhere to store you, so I suppose I consider that concern fair."

"Stealing only works if we don't run away with you first," Natasha says, still smiling.

Tony huffs a little. "In that case, I probably only have to steal Cap, Barnes, and Sam. And Lang." He wrinkles his nose.

Because Hawkeye can see in the fucking dark, Clint laughs. "Lang, definitely. Sam, probably, seeing as how Shuri's here. Cap and Bucky, though, yeah, you're just not looking close enough."

"Barton—"

"Stark," Clint says over him, nowhere near as sharp, but with a certain warning level to it. "I'm on the team for my observational capabilities."

"And a few other things," Natasha says mildly. Tony's pretty sure she's rolling her eyes.

Clint stage whispers, "She means as her sex slave. Have to keep the beast satiated."

There's a second, just a quick moment, where both he and Natasha stare at Clint in the exact same way, a cross between wondering if he has lost his mind and kind of wanting to laugh. Then Natasha flicks Clint between the eyes and Tony blinks. Clint laughs. "C'mon, we'll make you coffee and we can discuss your plans for kidnapping. Cap says there's still a few details to iron out."

"And by few, he means a few hundred," Natasha clarifies.

She's not wrong, so Tony says, "I accept your offering of caffeinated sustenance."

"Attaboy," Clint says, and heads back toward the complex. 

Natasha, for her part, stays at Tony's side, their arms brushing each other now and then. She asks, "You sleep at all?"

He knocks into her a bit, intentionally, and says, "I'll try again tomorrow night. Promise."

"Better. I _will_ put sedatives in your food."

Tony absolutely believes that.

*

Tony gets his first real look at what's left of the tech in Bucky's arm a couple of days later, when Bucky goes in for some more maintenance. Tony hasn't planned on it, but he's on the phone with Maria talking about setting up a national treasury independent of Stark Industries and there's a knock on the door. He says, "Gimme a sec, Maria," and calls, "Yeah?"

When Bucky peers into the room, just his head, not even putting a toe inside, Tony amends that to, "Let me call you back, okay?" and hits "end" before she can respond. "Um. You wanna … come in?"

Bucky doesn't move, though. Instead he says, "You like tech."

"Lot more straightforward than people," Tony says. "Or animals."

"I like dogs," Bucky says. Then frowns. "I think. I think I did?"

"Okay." 

Bucky looks down. "I just—the scientists are going to do some work on the arm."

Tony's aware he misses a lot of cues, but he sure as hell doesn't miss the way Bucky refers to what will be part of his body as "the" rather than "my."

"Did you…was there something you wanted to understand?"

Bucky shifts on his feet. "I thought maybe you'd like a look."

Tony has very few rules in his life, but one of the most important ones is: look all gift horses in the mouth. Hard. "Is that—did Steve send you?"

To Tony's surprise, the side of Bucky's lip curls in what might be half a smile. Tony asks, "Something funny?"

"Little," Bucky says, and there's a hint of Brooklyn in the word. "You've been here three and a half days, and spent most that time watching Steve. You know he doesn't tell me to do anything. Not even eat or sleep, even though it's killing him not to."

Tony nods. Steve doesn't, won't, Bucky's right about that. Won't take the chance that he's like the people who—who _owned_ Bucky for the better part of seventy years. "He does suggest you eat. And sleep."

Bucky nods. "And if he allowed himself to do what he wanted, he'd suggest I ask you to take a look at the arm." He takes a breath, nostrils flaring. "I watch him, too. I know. But I also know his suggestions are generally good."

Tony looks down and makes himself think. It's a sign of trust, that Steve would suggest it, maybe a bigger sign of trust than any he's ever shown Tony. For that reason alone it's nearly impossible to say no, even if it's unfair to Bucky, puts him back in the space of being an object, a point of contact. He glances back up at Bucky. "If you didn't think he would suggest it?"

"I—" Bucky's gaze flickers to the side, and then he focuses again. "I don't know. I like that it doesn't bother you."

Tony tilts his head both ways. "It bothers me that they kinda did a shit job. All that tech and no finesse."

Bucky's body language tightens. "Describes a lot more than the arm."

"Yeah," Tony says after a moment. "Yeah, it does. I'm going to give you an out now and so many outs later, all the outs, but I want some kind of commitment. You sure—"

"I want it." Bucky blinks. "As much as I remember how to want things."

Tony doesn't always recognize truth when he hears it, or even pain, but the combination here is impossible to miss. "Good," he says, "Because I'm pretty much dying to upgrade the hell out of you."

*

The Wakandan scientists are highly accomplished professionals who look Bucky in the eye, ask him direct questions, and treat him like a person. Bucky has no complaints with them, really. But it's Tony who can look at the arm and say, "It's probably kind of awkward to talk about that time we tried to kill each other, but I've been watching some of the video of your movement in fights, that one and others, and I think with better wiring you'd actually have much more flexibility in terms of backward range of motion. You're gonna have to answer some questions, though, before I have any idea if the approach I'm taking is right."

It's Tony who notices that Bucky likes watching the tech components come together, that sometimes he talks to the tech as though it could answer back—Tony does too, doesn't even seem to notice, either—that Bucky might want the arm to do things that have nothing to do with either combat or even functionality.

Bucky gets it. To the Wakandans, Bucky is a job. He's an important, living being, but they are bio-engineers, and he is their foundation. To Tony…well, Bucky's not entirely sure what he is to Tony, but it's not a job. It's not even a project, exactly, so far as he can tell.

Bucky tells Sam, because Sam doesn't coddle him. At least not in ways Bucky can see, and for once, he's happy enough to be manipulated. He's perfectly aware Sam fixes people's heads for a living. He doubts Sam can get very far with Bucky's, but he likes the way Sam goes about it, and that's enough.

Bucky goes out on a run with Sam, and says, "Maybe it's an apology. For Steve, I mean. Tony fixing the arm."

Sam looks at him. Bucky keeps his eyes ahead and lets him. Also, he wants to make sure Sam doesn't run into a tree. The area of the forest they chose is kind of dense, and Shuri will kick Bucky's ass if Sam comes back bruised up, even if Bucky _didn't_ cause it.

Sam refocuses his attention on the route and says, "Personally, I think Tony buying Gilligan's Island is his way of apologizing, and Steve helping him draft a constitution is _his_ way of apologizing, and they're doing relatively fine for two complete idiots, but if you need to feel like you're integral to that process, by all means."

Bucky runs for a bit, letting that roll around in his head. "I…should tell Tony he doesn't have to help, then."

"Why?" Sam asks.

Bucky frowns. He can hear that Sam thinks it's a dumb idea, which isn't fair. Sam _just_ told him Tony's not doing it for Steve. "Because—"

Oh. Tony's not doing it for Steve.

Sam makes a noise that's hard to decipher. "You think Tony does a fuck of a lot that he doesn't want to if it's actually an option? I mean, I'm not saying the guy doesn't make hard choices, because that's a dick statement about a guy who took a nuclear bomb into space, but that's an emergency-only response in Tony."

Bucky frowns. He has the sense this shouldn't be that hard to understand. Whatever Tony wants, even if it's just to play with tech he doesn't otherwise have a chance to, it has to do with _Bucky._ Maybe it would be easier if Bucky didn't still wake up sometimes forgetting his own name. Maybe not. He can't really remember what it was like to have a fully embodied mental idea of personhood, so who the fuck knows.

He settles for saying, "That complicates matters."

"Why?" Sam says, and it's not even sharp. It has an edge of _knowing_ to it, but even that's blunted.

It gives Bucky the clue he needs to answer, though. He sighs. "As missions go, protecting Steve is at least straightforward, if not easy."

"Yeah," Sam agrees. "Having to figure out right and wrong on our own is a bitch."

Bucky looks over at Sam. Sam glances back. Bucky's pretty sure he's not being facetious. He wishes Sam were. It would mean things might get easier.

*

Natasha doesn't like sitting through the sessions between Bucky and Wanda. It's not just a reaction to watching two people she cares about suffer. She's actually a little proud—in a way she'd never talk about—that she can have that level of sympathy, of concern.

It's more that it feels like betrayal. A type of survivor's guilt that plays out even though Bucky's sitting right there in front of her. She'd never say that her deprogramming was fun, or even less than completely horrifying, but it didn't risk dismantling her higher functions and possibly her nervous system. And it hadn't meant posing a danger to someone she liked, felt a responsibility to.

For those reasons, though, she sits in every session. Clint wishes she wouldn't, she knows, but he also doesn't say it, well aware it's only going to end in a fight he's going to lose. Instead, he sits next to her, pretending like he's there for Wanda. Not that he's _not_ there for Wanda. Just, mostly, Natasha knows, it's for her.

Sometimes her love for him is so fucking sharp she's not sure how she pushed it to the side for so long without it gutting her, filleting her. 

She's infinitely grateful they're both in the room when Wanda's working on a fourth trigger—the third had come out with a resultant migraine for Wanda, and Bucky spending two days shivering from psychically induced cold—and Bucky…goes to pieces. Even later, that's the best description Natasha will have, despite it being entirely wrong.

He doesn't go after any of them. It's almost unfortunate, because they've prepared for that. He starts trying to dismantle _himself._ And he doesn't even start with the arm, which of course he's finally got a new prototype of and would be horrifying enough, oh no, he uses the new left arm to dislocate the right arm. 

Natasha's on him the second she hears the pop, having moved the moment he began moving. One arm down, the other one two days old and not a completed product, and it still takes herself, Clint, and some serious mojo on Wanda's part to get him immobilized and coming back up to rationality.

She sees him return to himself. There's not even a second between cognition coming back into his eyes and all-out panic. "Wanda!"

Wanda leans over. "Here, Bucky. Here. You only hurt you."

Natasha knows the kind of relief that rushes into Bucky's body with an intimacy that causes her nausea. She runs a hand through his hair. "Let's get you to medical, okay?"

She turns to Clint who nods at the implicit, _go find Steve._

Bucky slurs a little when he says, "That's…they probably programmed that as a backstop."

"Yeah," she agrees.

He smiles a little, relief still granting him a woozy expression. "Worse things."

Natasha understands, she does. But she doesn't agree this time.

*

Clint is making time down the hall when Tony slides out of his way and then, at his back asks sharply, "Bucky?"

"Medical wing," Clint calls back without slowing or looking back.

Tony swears under his breath and runs. In the back of his mind, he appreciates that the Wakandans are astonishingly good at being unflappable in the face of outsiders losing their minds, given that outsiders aren't really a thing here. Even at top speed, by the time he makes it there, Steve is there, Bucky is being dosed with ketamine, or whatever it is the Wakandans have that actually puts him under, and things are basically under control.

Natasha's digging her fingers into the new arm—Tony will have to check the reaction to the pressure, fuck, focus—and Wanda's plastered to her side, her eyes frantically running over the length of his body. Steve is asking a series of questions of Dr. Gueye, who's answering at the same time that she keeps her gaze on the read outs over Bucky.

Tony assesses Wanda, who seems worried, but physically fine. Natasha's obviously okay, both because-Natasha and because Clint would never have been sent had she not been. Steve, on the other hand, is pretty clearly only barely hanging onto calm by his fingertips. Tony doesn't let himself think too hard, because he's pretty sure that's a big part of how they got into this situation in the first place: everyone thinking too fucking hard. Instead he steps behind Steve, plants his hand in the small of Steve's back and presses until Steve's breathing slows and his questions sputter.

Dr. Gueye says softly, "He will heal in his sleep, Captain. And wake up with one less trigger. This process was always going to involve risk."

Tony can feel the way Steve's muscles clench, the quiet helplessness of the reaction. The doctor focuses her attention on Tony, who puts every bit of his focus on not saying anything, letting himself be considered without throwing up a defense. Eventually she nods and walks off. Tony hasn't got a clue what that's supposed to mean, but he's got bigger problems at the moment, so he looks at Wanda, and asks, "Know where some chairs are?"

It takes a few minutes and some searching. Soon, though, Tony's got Steve and Wanda seated. Natasha's not going anywhere, that's clear from the look on her face. Tony works around her to take readings on the arm, keeping a hand on Bucky's shoulder on the off-chance the guy manages to swim up through the sedatives. The Wakandans have got a handle on things, but super-soldiers, man. Can't trust 'em.

Also, he's figured out that human touch helps Bucky stay calm when the arm is being tinkered with. It's one of these things he knows now, without remembering exactly how he learned it. Like so many other things these days, he's stridently not thinking too deeply about it.

Natasha's shuddering ever so slightly. Tony can't see it, even standing next to her, but he can feel the vibrations. He crowds into her space. Clint's on her other side. She can go backward, but otherwise, between Tony, Bucky, and Clint, she's hemmed in. Tony waits to see if she'll bolt. 

Something escapes from her throat, a breath, a mewl, a sob, Tony can't quite place it. Clint says, "Okay. We're all okay."

"Yeah," Steve says.

Tony continues his diagnostics. "Not so much. But we're gonna be."

*

Bucky wakes to the sound of Steve's soft snores. It's funny, Steve shouldn't snore, not with the serum, and yet he does. Bucky lets himself marinate in the awareness that Steve's snores used to be different, more high-pitched, a constant, desperate search for air. Now they're just…consistent, almost like a metronome.

Bucky takes a breath and opens his eyes, immediately focusing in on Tony. Tony's not asleep, and he's not really reading whatever's on the pad in front of him, either. Bucky asks, "Wanda still okay?"

"Yup." Tony doesn't even startle, which tells Bucky exactly where his focus actually was. "Clint and Natasha made her go eat dinner, probably tucked her into their bed."

Bucky bites the inside of his lip. Wanda's not a child, neither in terms of years nor experience, but he wholly understands Natasha's need to treat her as one. Or, rather, to treat her the way Natasha should have been treated as a child. The way any child should be treated, while still a child.

He's putting her, everyone in that room, at risk every time they do this. He knows they all volunteered, aware of that risk, which is more than he can say for most of the actions he's taken in his life. All the same, he's not sure he can keep doing this, one by one by one. Five to go and it seems like too much.

"Whatever you're thinking, it's a bad idea," Tony says, once again pretending to pay attention to his pad.

Bucky's surprised by the smile the comment wants to force out of him. "Oh?"

"You have the exact same body language as Captain 'let's see what happens now' America over there when he's planning to do something so amazingly stupid even Clint's surprised. And Clint has a degree in jumping off multi-story buildings in the hope that someone else will notice and catch him."

Bucky reaches out and takes the pad from Tony. "You pay a lot of attention to him."

Tony holds his gaze with the intensity of someone who's playing chicken and absolutely intent on winning. "He fills a room."

Bucky calls that bullshit for what it is. "He always did for me. And I think it's not his size that makes it happen for you, either."

"Barnes—"

"Bucky," Bucky says, lightly but with authority. He'll let Tony get away with the nicknames, but Bucky has chosen his name, and he wants to be called by it, not the myriad other options.

"You're seeing things."

Bucky tilts his head. "Really? You're gonna tell the brainwashed guy that he's _seeing_ things?"

"Low blow."

"On my part, or yours?" Bucky asks.

"You really are as much of a pain in the ass as he is," Tony says.

"Yeah, well, you like a challenge."

Tony opens his mouth, then closes it. After a minute, he asks, "What are you doing?"

"Being a wingman, I think. I remember being a jealous little shit about Peggy, at least I think I do, so better late than never, I guess."

"Who were you jealous of?"

"Stark."

"Tony." Tony flashes a shit eating grin.

Bucky just doesn't respond. Tony says, "The thing you're missing here is that he was always jealous of your girls, and not for the reasons you thought. Just both of you were…operating under a misapprehension. Clear as fucking day when he talks about your dates, when you talk about Peggy, so long as the other person listening isn't one of you two."

"I've tried to kill him," Bucky says.

"Join the club," Tony throws back.

"No," Bucky shakes his head. "No. You weren't trying to kill him. Me? Yeah, probably, although, remains to be seen if you would have actually taken the shot. I'm not saying it's impossible, but that it didn't happen, so there's room for doubt. But him? You were just trying to get him to stay down."

"I knew that wasn't in his genes."

Bucky nods. "Yeah, you did, and you still didn't end it when you could have."

"So I get the honors because I only tried to beat him bloody and unconscious?"

Despite having just woken from the sedatives, Bucky feels worn. He wants a bath and his own bed. He wants hot chocolate, and the sound of Steve drawing in the other room. He shakes his head. "No, you get the honors because you're the future, and I'm the past, and we both know what's better for him."

Tony blinks at him. "You have no idea that you're actually terribly, magnificently wrong, do you?"

Bucky dredges up a smile. "Guess you'll just have to prove it to me. I get the feeling you're the kind of guy who enjoys that."

*

Tony has spent most of his life fumbling his way into relationships through sheer audacity and an ability to mask fear that he argues most Spartans would have envied. Maybe his time with Pepper has gotten him a little out of practice. She saw through all his bullshit, which meant he had to actually be a human being with her. It was hard work. Worth it, but hard.

He's more than a little worried Steve will see through his bullshit, too. Steve does about fifty percent of the time, which is on the high end of things. Tony wishes he could stop himself from coming out with guns blazing, but the next time he catches Steve alone, all the sensible things Tony considered saying fly halfway around the world and what he says is, "Sarge Amnesia says you've got the hots for me."

They're in the courtyard, sitting at one of the unlit fire pits. Tony imagines there are times when it gets cold enough to light them, but certainly not at this time of the year. For a moment, Steve pauses to consider what Tony has said. "No, he didn't. I'm not sure what he _did_ say, but it wasn't that. And I'm not sure why you're bringing it up, but I doubt it has much to do with my physical attraction preferences."

"Maybe he's worried about all the unresolved sexual tension." Tony waggles his eyebrows.

"He's really not," Steve says, with that particular version of a straight face that is so sincere as to almost be ironic.

"I think he's just trying to ruin his chances with you, actually."

Slowly, Steve says, "I know he thinks he's bad for me. It's on the list of things to work on when his brain's his own."

"Hilariously, he seems to think I'm good for you."

Tony needs Steve to laugh that off so they can go back to being platonic life partners who sometimes battle to the near death. It's crucial to his life plan. Instead, Steve says, "You are good for me. I realize the past few months haven't been anybody's best moment, but they also don't change everything that's happened since New York."

Tony gives him a look of impolite disbelief. "Are we talking about when I was stomping on your nerves on the helicarrier or—"

"I give as good as I get," Steve says with a strange sort of calm. A deliberation, almost.

"Was that sexual innuendo?" Tony can't hide how flabbergasted he is.

"Would you like it to be?"

"Okay, usually I would be the guy who would dial this right up to eleven and give the Wakandans a white boy show right here right now, but actually, I need to know what the hell is happening, because this isn't just us. There's a team of people, a family—"

Steve kisses him. It's not aggressive or claiming. It's more as if it's the best answer Steve has. "You challenge me. You make me do the work of figuring out what lies behind my convictions. You lay down on every last damn wire someone puts in front of this team. You hide behind your tech because you trust it, trust it to protect us, and trust it not to leave you. You make me a better person every day of my life, even when I'm pissed at you, and yes, Tony, I want to sleep with you, but not if all I get is your body. It's a good body, but it's the least interesting or attractive thing about you."

"Holy shit," Tony whispers.

Steve gets out his phone and actually types, "Tony speechless" into his calendar, the asshole.

"Holy—Okay. That's…there's a lot there," Tony says, "but can we maybe sleep together first and talk about it later?"

"Absolutely," Steve says.

"And, uh, about Bucky. That's probably something we need to talk about."

"Definitely something we need to talk about," Steve agrees.

"But first, sex."

Steve takes his hand and Tony doesn't even mind when it's totally, one hundred percent obvious that Sam and Shuri are laughing at them from the grass where they're lounging halfway across the courtyard.


	12. I Knew the Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha gives everyone good advice. Bucky doesn't take sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a tiny bit of transliterated Xhosan in here. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find what I would consider a trustworthy source. If you speak Xhosan or have a source that does, please please feel free to give me a correct transliteration.
> 
> Otherwise, that's all she wrote, folks. Thanks to those of you crazy kids who actually came back and read this after two years of hiatus, you're the actual best.

Admittedly, Tony has spent a lot of time in his life as the love-'em-and-leave-'em kind, but Tony is not Steve Rogers, so it’s a little disappointing to wake up in the bed by himself. After a moment, though, he hears the soft voices in the other room. He scrubs a hand over his face and considers going back to sleep. In the end, he puts on a shirt and some boxers and stumbles out to where Steve and Natasha are sitting on the couch.

Clint, who's in the armchair, says, "Don't dress up on our account, or anything."

Tony would flip him off, but the afterglow is too good to bother getting het up about Clint. Instead he goes to the kitchen, pours himself coffee, which Steve has clearly made on his account, given that nobody else is drinking it, and sits down in the other armchair. "Is this a secret council? Am I invited?"

Natasha answers "No" and "Yes," respectively at the exact moment as Clint answer "Yes" and "No," respectively. Tony snorts, takes a sip of coffee and says, "Now that we've cleared that up."

"Nat's worried you're gonna do what seventy odd years of torture and ice couldn't manage and break Barnes," Clint says. He's casual with it, the way he is with everything right before he lets a shot fly.

Natasha probably has the same thought, because she says, "I'm very pleased you and Steve have figured your Moonlighting bullshit out, don't get me wrong."

Tony grins. He loves it when Natasha's inner eighties dork makes an appearance, he can't help himself. It's so _weird._ Also, something they have in common. "Am I Cybill Shepherd in this situation?"

"Tony," Natasha says, with the dryness of a vast, unending desert, "You are Cybill Shepherd in almost all situations."

Steve gets out his notebook and writes something down. Tony hopes it's Moonlighting and not Cybill Shepherd. The former has more cultural significance, on average. He opens his mouth to ask. Steve intercedes with, "Have you ever read 'The Ethical Slut'?"

Tony chokes on his coffee. "What?"

"It's a book. It's about—"

"I know what it is, Steve. Who told _you_ about it?"

"There's this thing, I think they call it the Google machine, you ask it questions—"

"Okay, nevermind, stop talking."

"In fairness," Clint says, "I helped him with search terms."

"Oh? Polyamory wasn't a huge thing in the day?"

Steve shrugs. "It wasn't not a thing, either. We just talked about it differently."

Tony tilts his head. "Have you read the book?"

"I've started."

"And?" Tony prompts.

Steve's chest moves, like it does when he's visibly blocking himself from sighing. "I think you and I are not always the greatest at using our words. I think I'm not sure whether you'd prefer a 'v' or a three-way. I think maybe it's a disaster waiting to happen, but I also think anything else is a disaster already happening."

Tony can feel Natasha watching him. He looks at her, quirking his eyebrows. She says, "Not a v."

She doesn't say all the things she could say about Tony's neuroses, just that. Tony takes a deep breath. "Yeah, probably wouldn't…I might have trouble with that."

"Not for nothing, but you realize his vote counts too, right?" Clint's watching Natasha as he says it. 

She glances over at him. "A little faith, here?"

Clint laughs at that and stands, wandering off to the window. Natasha returns her focus to them. "Full offense, the three of you need all the help you can get."

"Have you actually asked him, Nat?" Steve is tensed, and Tony wants nothing more than to go dig into those muscles until some of that tension lets go.

Natasha purses her lips. "I really, really don't have to. It's in every line of his body, even the mechanical ones. But if you want me to, I will."

Steve winces. "I have to know. And I have to know free of either of our influence. I know he'll do what I want, what Tony wants. That's—I need to know that we're doing what _he_ wants. And I don't trust that I know this version of him well enough to properly read his answers."

Natasha watches Steve for several long moments before turning her attention to Tony. He tries to sit still under it, to let her see whatever she needs to see. Finally she says, "The shit I do for you people."

*

Natasha catches Bucky as he's leaving his room to go for a run the next morning. "Willing to slow down a bit for an old friend?"

He huffs. "They really didn't put the serum in you?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but not enough that I can do the things you and Steve do, that's for sure."

He raises an eyebrow. "You do them just fine in your own way."

She rolls her eyes and starts forward in a jog. "Coming, slowpoke?"

Once they're outside, he says, "Assuming my memory is at all correct, you realize you still have the same body language approaching a mission as you did when you were a kid?"

"A mission, huh?"

"Don't worry," he tells her. "It wasn't you who choreographed it. Stark and Steve are both incredibly terrible at anything approaching subtlety."

"You don't have to tell me."

He grins. "No, I bet I don't. What's all this about, then?"

"It's about Steve worrying that he'll be imposing himself on your free will if he mentions that he's head over heels in love with you."

She doesn't say anything else, just lets that settle for a while. The whole point is not to force him into anything. It's a good mile or so before he asks, "What's he proposing?"

"For him and Tony to romance you right off your own feet."

She catches the jolt in motion that in anybody else would be them tripping over air. "What?"

"I'm guessing it's the Tony part that's throwing you?"

He tosses an incredulous look her way. "I killed his parents."

She doesn't want to make light of the statement, because if anyone gets where he's coming from, it's probably her. But she also doesn't want to give his guilt space to take root and grow. She asks, "If I'd killed…one of your sisters, or, or someone you cared about, would you have held it against me?"

He speeds up a little and she lets him, despite not being able to catch up. Eventually he modulates back to where she can join him again and he says, "They took you out of your home as a child and tortured you into a weapon."

"So, no?" she presses, not hard, her voice quiet.

"No," he grounds out.

"But I wasn't being mind-controlled. Not to the extent you were. Yes, there were triggers, but nothing like that stuff Wanda's pulling from you."

She watches as he bites his lip. She doesn't want him to bleed, she'll tell him to stop before that happens. After a bit, he says, "I understand the parallel. But his parents are still dead."

"And I do not doubt, for a second, that he likes to relive every time he stuck it to Hydra, and that he's going to trace down everyone even nominally associated with the Red Room and destroy them in a way that even you and I might find ruthless, but taking apart the damn gun that fired the shot isn't going to change anything."

"Might keep it from killing someone else."

She pulls up in front of him and stops. His reaction is immediate, he doesn't even make it into her space before he stops as well. "You're not theirs anymore. Maybe you can't stop being deadly, but you get to make the choices about when you're deadly and when you are not. So you don't get to leave what you've done behind, and that's cruel, because none of it was at your insistence, but you get to go forward. We all get to go forward. He gets to believe that the organization that killed his parents is more important than the means they used, and you get to decide if letting him move on and be happy with you and Steve, so that Steve gets to be happy too, is enough for you to allow yourself to take the risk of being happy."

He looks to the side. When he focuses back in on her, he asks, "Is that what allowed you to…you must have put Clint off forever. The two of you have known each other how long?"

He's not asking to make this about her. She can hear it in the question. He's asking because it's the closest thing he can imagine to parity. She shrugs. "Over a decade, although I'm pretty sure he's only been carrying the torch for about six or seven years."

"But you chose now—"

"I can't say that it was precisely thought out. And at least some of it was that I never want to end up in a fight where both of us are in our right minds and on the opposite side anyway."

"Some of it."

She nods. "Some of it is that, yeah, I don't think he deserves to have his choices taken away by a past I didn't define. That just screws both of us. And I can't see the point anymore. I don't think it's making the people I've harmed any happier for me to be miserable. If it was, then perhaps I would keep at it." She takes a breath. "Probably, even. But it doesn't."

He steps around her and starts running again, but at a pace she can follow. He says, "Steve makes him happy. They could be happy."

"If you actually believe that, then sure, let it lie."

"I do believe they make each other happy. When they're not trying to kill each other."

She doesn't take the bait. She says, "There's happy, and there's complete. You can't always have both. But right now, the only thing standing in the way of the possibility of them having both is you. If that's because you don't care about Tony, or it was never that way with Steve for you, then by all means, give them happy and move on. But if it's about you being a hot mess of issues, get over yourself."

He blinks at that. She waits a stride, two, three, and then laughs with him, when he bursts out in a peel of his own.

*

Bucky is pretty good at pinning people down when he wants to. He doesn't like to think about why. Sam's not exactly easy to catch, but he's not hard, either. Shuri's often busy helping to run her country, and Sam probably doesn't know he should be avoiding Bucky.

Bucky goes to Sam's rooms, bringing him coffee and cinnamon roasted almonds as a peace offering. Sam accepts it as his due. He says, "You've got five minutes, starting now."

Bucky nods. It's actually helpful, giving him a time limit, it forces him to just forge ahead. "Natasha has told me all the reasons I should think about being in a relationship with Steve and Tony. Now I need you to tell me all the objective, outsider perspective ones for why I shouldn’t."

Sam munches on a nut, clearly waiting for more. When no more is forthcoming, Sam says, "No."

Bucky blinks, then presses down anger that feels a lot closer to desperation than he wants it to. "This isn't a joke, this isn't—"

"I'm not being funny," Sam cuts him off. "I'm telling you that I don't like you enough to ruin Steve's chance at happiness, but I trust you enough that I'm willing to give that potential disaster a shot."

Bucky's not ready to parse any of that so he says, "There's Tony, too."

"I'm not Tony's best friend. You're going to have to talk to Rhodes or maybe Pepper for that. Although, truth be told, pretty sure Nat has his best interests as much at heart as Steve's, so you've kind of already covered that territory."

Bucky uses the only weapon Sam has handed him so far: "If you don't like me, what the hell is there to trust?"

"I said I don't like you enough to fuck Steve over for it, not that I didn't like you, first of all, and second of all, there's a guy who's been letting his brain be taken apart molecule by molecule to make sure it's safe for others, and yeah, there's some damn good reasons to trust that guy."

Bucky flexes his fingers in frustration. "I need to know the other side. The cons that aren't—aren't the stuff that might or might not be real." He knocks on his head harder than necessary, appreciating the brief flash of pain. "There's _so much_ that might not be real."

"Sure," Sam agrees. "But there's really only one thing that matters in this context: why do _you_ think you shouldn't be with Steve?"

So many answers flood Bucky's mind that he has to close his eyes, try and quiet the din. After a few moments, he's able to summarize. "Because weapons aren't capable of love, and he deserves love."

"Yeah, okay, you're right, _that's_ not real."

Bucky opens his eyes to look at Sam. Sam rolls his eyes. "Fucked up to Timbuktu and back and you pulled the guy out of the Potomac. Stayed away from him despite being aware he was your one link to your past, and probably your best bet for safety. Weapons don't put the wellbeing of others above theirs, either, so no. That's not a reason."

"But there _are_ reasons. There have to be."

"There are _always_ reasons not to take a risk," Sam says. "Because all three of you are flaming nuclear messes, because two of you are fugitives from the law, because triads are a lot of fucking work, pick your poison. But all of those are stupid next to the reason you should take the risk."

Bucky almost asks, but Sam is looking at him so flatly he's pretty sure he'll get decked if he does. Cautiously, he tries, "Because he wants it?"

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. "No, Bucky." He takes his hand away and pins Bucky with a stare. "Because you love him."

It sounds too simple to be enough. Bucky is starting to get that it probably is anyway.

*

Tony is three seconds from setting fire to Steve and watching him burn—or, alternatively, fucking him over the desk until he agrees that their island will need political allies—when he catches Bucky standing in the door to the room and just stops yelling. It's not that Bucky looks angry, or scared, or anything that should make Tony stop. It's that, suddenly, Tony's tired.

After a beat, Steve asks, "Tony?" like they weren't reaming each other new ones half a second before over differences in geopolitical theory.

Tony gestures at Bucky, and Steve turns. Tony asks, "What do you think, Barnes? The Steve Rogers school of Go It Alone, or the Tony Stark approach of Occasionally, You Might Need Someone On Your Side?"

Bucky looks between them and Tony just waits to be double-teamed. After a beat, Bucky says, "Neither, both, split the difference. Make sure you can stand on your own two feet, but that you have someone to patch you up in case of emergencies. Which, I'm just spitballing here, it's possible we have in Wakanda."

Tony tilts his head. "Did you just kind of take my side?"

Bucky wraps the new arm over his chest and seems to sink into himself a bit. "I didn't take a side. I took both sides. I—I chose both of you."

"That's…that's a metaphor, right?" Tony finds himself asking. Because as much as he'd like it to be one, now's not really the time to fuck everything up over reading into things. 

"Yes," Bucky says. He frowns. "Well, and no, I was actually serious about splitting the difference. But the choosing part was. Except also that was—Jesus, fuck."

"Hey," Steve says. He moves closer to where Bucky is standing, still looking for all the world like he might very well punch the first person to get close. "Hey Buck."

Tony moves without feeling it. He loses the seconds between standing practically across the room from Bucky and almost in his space. They're breathing in time, and it comes to Tony that the pattern of his inhalation is a barely-controlled type of terror. He thinks it might not be any different for Bucky. He can't say if that feels terrible or calming, and after a second he laughs, causing the other two to stare at him. He says, "Split the difference," like that will mean anything.

It must be enough, because Bucky lets his arm fall to his side, leans toward Tony just enough that when Tony stumbles forward it's into him, their mouths meeting, a little bit clumsy, a lot unsure, but full of effort on each of their parts, all the same. Tony's not sure which one of them pulls back first, just that they both find Steve with their eyes upon parting. His eyes are dilated, his fists clenched at his side.

Bucky says, "Stevie," and Steve closes his eyes for a second, opening them to step into the semi-circle Tony and Bucky are forming. Tony thinks it's a bit like closing a circuit, like containing too much energy into the only conduit that can handle it. 

Tony hooks his hands into Steve's and asks, "Okay?"

Steve tugs him forward a bit, kissing him quickly, and then does the same with his other hand to Bucky. He says, "Something more than okay. Better. Better than okay."

Tony knows, he _knows_ this is playing with fire and knives and every other weapon that every damn piece of wisdom ever will tell a person not to play with. He knows he is the part of this triad that isn't necessary to make it work. He—he knows damn well he's being an idiot.

But he sure as fuck wouldn't have the suit without also having the burn scars to show for it. Taking stupid risks in the name of adventure is his trademark. And if that's never been true in terms of personal relationships, well. No time like the present, right? Worse comes to worst, he can always kick them off the island.

*

"Don't look now," Clint says, his eyes still on the cards in his hand, "but I think Stooges one through three might have gotten their shit together."

"Huh," Shuri says, and pushes a few chips toward the center. She glances over at Sam, who's watching her fingers.

Natasha folds, her hand is shit anyway, and she's not in the mood. She doesn't look at where Bucky, Tony, and Steve have just ambled into the music and recreational room. Instead she says to Sam, "You know, if Tony's setting up Avenger Nation, it's probably gonna need an embassy in the one country that doesn't want to arrest all of us."

"And by embassy, you mean my bed, right?" Shuri asks casually.

"I mean, assuming Sam is the ambassador, I guess that's up to you." Natasha only gets all up in people's love lives when they're too stupid to handle it for themselves, and neither Shuri nor Sam qualifies.

"I'd be circumspect about that, though, because I'm telling you, otherwise, it's gonna become a hot position." Clint doubles.

Shuri laughs. "Oh, you speak from personal knowledge?"

Clint tilts his head in her direction with the most unimpressed look Natasha has ever seen on his face. "I'm in love, Your Highness, not blind and dead."

Natasha doesn't bother to hide her smile. Instead she says, "I'm mostly straight and I have to agree on this front."

"Okay, but are you trying to say I couldn't beat out the competition? I'm highly professionally qualified," Sam says, matching Clint's bet.

"Indeed," Shuri murmurs, calling.

Clint snorts. "Never, my man. That said—" He lays down a royal flush.

Sam throws down his cards. He looks over at Shuri, who shrugs and puts hers down, too. Natasha gathers them up and starts shuffling. "Another?"

Shuri looks over at Natasha. "He's cheating, isn't he?"

"On that last hand? Oh yeah."

"And the three before that?" Shuri presses.

"No," Natasha says. "That was just him hustling you."

"Don't play with circus trash if you expect a clean game, my lady," Clint says with a grin.

"Mm," Shuri says. "Yes, let's play again."

"Just so we're clear, everyone knows she's gonna figure out how you're doing it and take you for everything you're worth, right? Like, we're all on the same page here?" Sam asks.

Clint keeps grinning. "The only things I've got that are worth something are my bow and Natasha. She can make a better version of the first one and good luck taking the second one."

Natasha deals. "I dunno. Like I said, _mostly_ straight."

Clint barks a laugh. "Low blow."

Natasha leans over and kisses him. "Don't let her figure it out and you won't have to worry about it."

"Great," Clint says. "No pressure, or anything."

*

Tony and Bucky have taken to sitting on Tony's balcony in the afternoons, using the warmth to loosen Bucky's muscles, make it easier to massage at the place where joint and muscle join the casing, and get some feedback on what's working well with the new prototype and what's not. Steve's begun joining them, supposedly sketching the scenery, but Tony will bet the entirety of his wealth that if he took a peek at the picture any given day, it'd have the beginnings of Bucky and possibly himself.

The scratch of Steve's pencil against the paper is the only noise aside from the mid-afternoon whisperings of birds crazy enough to be flying in the heat the day Bucky says, "Ithuba Lesibini."

"Hm?" Tony asks. He's a little concerned about the way he cannot get one of the muscles to work the way his experience and the studies he's been looking into say it should. He's chatted with the head Wakandan physician on the project. The two of them are both working to figure out if there's a way to rewire a few of the leads to be putting less strain on that particular muscle group. He's busy trying to figure out if any of their efforts have gotten them anywhere, and pretending he doesn't miss Bruce like a limb, when Bucky says it. And honestly, since most of the time Bucky wants to talk about stuff like trying to remember the taste of funnel cakes while they're doing this, he thinks he can be forgiven for not focusing in.

But then Bucky says, "It means Second Chance in Wakandan. Or, well, Shuri says it does and I double checked with T'Challa without telling him why I was checking, so I'm pretty sure I'm not being pranked. Unless they're both in on it."

Bucky frowns. Steve does not look up from his drawing—Tony has figured out that this is how Cap manages to keep a straight face most of the time: he doesn't let you see his face—while asking, "Do they get together to prank you a lot?"

Bucky shakes his head. "Mostly Sam. And Scott. And Clint. It's only happened to me once."

Steve does look up at that, blinking. "I'm starting to feel left out."

"Pretty sure they just think you don't know how to laugh and don't want to break you," Tony "reassures" him. Returning to Bucky's point, Tony asks, "Why'd you ask what the Wakandan for 'second chance' was?"

"Because it's a good name for your island. Second Chance Island. And I figure we owe the Wakandans a lot more than a throwaway reference, but as a start, it doesn't hurt."

Tony takes his hands off Bucky in order to focus. "It's our island."

Bucky doesn't say anything to that. Tony looks over at Steve for support. Steve shrugs and goes back to sketching. Tony repeats, "It's _our_ island."

"The team's," Bucky agrees, haltingly, and like he's offering a conciliation prize.

Tony's stomach hurts and he wants a drink. He's been trying to be an adult though, lately, which sucks and he feels like his efforts should be more appreciated by the peanut gallery. He takes a deep breath. "I'm deeding the thing to a trust in the Avenger's name. And Truth, Love, and Democracy over there is helping figure out a governmental structure that will allow all inhabitants to have a voice in running things."

"I'm not an Avenger," Steve says, his voice calm. And Tony would be fooled if he thought Steve was ever calm about giving anything up. _Ever._

"I'm pretty sure I'm on the Avengers' watch list," Bucky chimes in, like the complete asshole he is.

"Semantics," Tony grits out, doing everything he can not to walk out on this conversation.

Steve sets aside the notebook and pencil. "Pretty sure everything in deeds is semantic."

"Keep it up, Rogers, you're going to end up in a binding and legal marriage to me, wherein all my earthly goods shall be yours as well." Tony stares him down.

Bucky laughs. _Laughs._ "That's not the threat you want it to be, pal."

"Watch it, Million Dollar Douche. We'll adopt you and live in incestuous sin."

For a second, Bucky's expression is almost impossible to read. Then he leans forward and kisses Tony. "Keep threatening to find ways to bind us to you, Tony, and you're gonna find yourself stuck with us for a lifetime."

He gets up and walks inside and Tony watches him, too distracted by his statement to even appreciate the muscles of his back and Tony _really_ fucking enjoys Bucky's back muscles. Steve stands and tousles Tony's hair. "What he said."

*

Bucky knows Steve is loath to leave Wakanda without all of the triggers having been culled. Bucky's not precisely thrilled, either, but there are only three left at this point, Wanda does seem to have it in hand, and there's an unspoken agreement between all of them that every day they stay is one day closer to T'Challa getting completely fucked over by it.

Sam is staying, at least for the moment. One guy is fairly easy to hide, especially when he doesn't quite stick out the way the rest of them do. Bucky can tell Sam's a little concerned about not being in yelling range of Steve—and boy, can Bucky ever sympathize with that—but he's also pretty certain Natasha has double pinky sworn to look after everyone.

Tony's jet fits all of them. It's a bit of a squeeze, but that's fine, since Bucky wants to burrow into Steve and pretend like it's not freaking him the hell out to leave the one place that's offered true safety since he came to in skin that no longer felt like his, with no memory of his own damn name. When the jet's on course, Tony wedges himself on the other side of Bucky without having to be asked, and that helps.

Steve and Tony are chatting with Natasha and Clint. Bucky's not really listening, it's just calming to have their voices drift over him. It's a four hour plane ride, and he spends every minute of it huddling.

Not even Tony gives him shit for it.

*

"So, about retirement," Clint says, hopping off the jet. Natasha laughs. He's not wrong though: the island is breathtaking. Wanda's looking toward the beach wistfully.

Natasha asks, "Ever swum in the ocean?"

Wanda shakes her head. "Closest I've been to open water is the lake near the complex."

Natasha knows what Clint's doing this afternoon. He's already heading off the tarmac and toward the beach, Wanda in his wake. Scott sees them and runs to catch up. Joining is tempting, but first she needs to talk with Maria and Sharon, figure out what’s really going on here, what their legal status is, what needs to be done. She also needs to chat with Bucky about timing on getting the last three triggers removed and work on the logistics of a place where any surrounding damage will be limited.

"You know," Steve says, coming up beside her, "Whatever it is you're plotting, I'm team leader."

"Of what team?" she asks, because nope, evidently she hasn't completely forgiven anybody for this clusterfuck.

"Nat," Steve says. There's no censure in it. If anything, she can hear a hint of concern.

"I just mean—what are we doing? Tony's found a way to keep us safe, good, great. But what's the plan?"

They're nearing a cluster of temporary structures. Tony's ahead of them, pointing things like the area along the coast where a number of bungalows are in the process of being built. Bucky is nodding, but he's also closing and opening the fist on his flesh hand. 

Steve says, "Well, first we're going to get an update from Sharon on how efforts are going toward getting all criminal charges removed for those of us that have them. Then we're going to decide what we want the structure of our team to be and go on doing our best to protect the planet and the people on it."

"And you and Tony have actually come to an agreement on how to best do that?"

Steve tilts his head. "We've agreed we're going to listen to the rest of the people this decision affects and go from there."

"And when you guys can't see your way to compromising, again?" She keeps the question light. It's almost impossible when the question itself causes her stomach to churn with fear.

"And here I was thinking you'd helped us get together to relieve the sexual tension and make it so we could see our way to compromising."

She nearly stumbles. "That wasn't my primary reason."

Steve raises an eyebrow at her. She smiles, unashamed. "It wasn't."

"It would have been an acceptable one."

"Yeah." She doesn't say, _I just wanted you happy, all of you._ Instead she steps inside the huge tent and sees Sharon and Maria waiting. They're both tanned, in shorts, hair pulled back.

Sharon smiles at her. Maria calls out, "Chilled white wine and cold beers in the mini-bar. We decided if Stark was gonna give us a tent with a mini-bar, we'd just do our jobs sloshed all the time. Join right in."

Natasha smirks. For the first time, she thinks there's a snowball's chance in hell of this working.

*

As soon as they've settled the issue of who's in which tent, Bucky slips off his shoes and goes down to the beach. The smell of the salt is everywhere. It feels familiar, in a way, but he's not sure if that's real, or just a product of his jumbled mind.

The dense, wet heat of the island is intense in an entirely different way that Wakanda's dry, oven-burn had been, but no less pleasant. It warms him from the outside in, which Bucky doubts he will ever be able to take for granted.

When he reaches the beginning of the sand, he digs his toes in and spends a few moments just wiggling them. He's about to start toward the water when he sees Tony sauntering toward him. Bucky can't decide if he's holding hands with Steve, or actually tugging him along behind. It looks like it might be a little bit of both. Then Steve catches sight of Bucky, and after that, him and Tony are definitely just holding hands.

Bucky waits, watching. Tony's in swimming trunks, flip flops, and nothing else. The scars on his chest are impressive, even to Bucky, and he stands in a way that tells Bucky he's not quite as confident about displaying them as he'd like everyone to think he is. Bucky has no intention of letting Tony know he's onto him. Bucky can’t even get himself to wear something sleeveless. 

Steve's in the linen pants that have become his uniform in the heat, a loose tank covering his chest. Bucky muses on whether he and Tony can team up to get it off of Steve. Probably, if he plays his cards right. Oh, who is he kidding, all it's going to take is raising an eyebrow at Tony and quirking his chin at Steve.

He smiles at the thought and Steve asks, "What's so funny?" having reached him.

"Your modesty," Bucky says, and Tony laughs. He also takes Bucky's hand in his free one, and starts them down toward the water. 

Steve glances at Bucky. "Did you put sunscreen on?"

"Melanoma isn't my highest concern," Bucky says.

"Sure, but how quick do you heal from sunburn?" Tony asks. "Because you're not getting out of bed-sharing because you make poor life choices."

Bucky doesn't look at either of them as he admits, "Clint came in and gave me a tube with a message from Tasha promising dire fates if I didn't use it."

"Getting mothered from all sides, I see," Tony says.

With Tasha, it's more like being bullied by his younger sister, but even that thought causes a pang of grief. Something in his posture must give him away, because Tony squeezes his hand a bit and leaves off. Bucky looks at Steve. "Did _you_ put sunscreen on?"

Steve flushes. "Tony, uh, helped."

"I'm amazed you guys made it out," Bucky says, snickering.

"Miss spending the day with you, Lobot? Never."

Bucky searches his mind, then shakes his head. "Don't know that one, either."

"Yeah," Tony sighs. "All my best jokes are lost on you two. It's one of the great tragedies of my existence."

"No doubt," Bucky agrees. They've reached where the water hits at the tail end of the waves, and the rush of it over Bucky's feet tickles, warm and bubbly and gentle.

Softly, Steve says, "This is a good place you found, Tony."

Tony's jaw tightens and Bucky watches as he consciously loosens it. "Not home, though, huh?"

Bucky doesn't have a home, and he doesn't think Steve really does, either. Steve shrugs. "Maybe not yet."

He leans in and kisses Tony, flashing a smile at Bucky. "But it's got everything we need to make it one, yeah, Buck?"

Bucky looks at the two of them. "Yeah. It does."


End file.
